


just the few of us

by jessalae



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Coming Untouched, Depression, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Fluff, Id Fic, M/M, Magical Pregnancy, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Pregnant Sex, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26391733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: "If you had told me," Eliot says into his hands, once the healer's gone, "when I was twenty, that within the next decade of my life I would have a wife, and knock her up, and that separately I would have a boyfriend and knock him up, I really don't know which one of those statements I would have believed less."
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 38
Kudos: 143
Collections: Iddy Iddy Bang Bang! 2020





	1. 0 weeks

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to M for beta-ing and making the pregnancy details actually make sense, because apparently my id demands a certain amount of accuracy.
> 
> Things depicted in this fic: unplanned pregnancy, all sorts of pregnancy symptoms, depression, c-sections. Things mentioned in this fic: infant loss, abortion, cervical cancer, hysterectomies, maternal death during childbirth, suicidal ideation, psychiatric medication. It all ends up fluffy and happy and excellent, but it's a bumpy ride. (pun originally not intended but now i'm proud of it so it's staying in)
> 
> Title comes from "It Takes Two" from _Into the Woods_.

The moons are low in the sky tonight, overlapping each other in a shining venn diagram, and it’s really great light to read by, actually. Quentin sits with his back to the window. He’s like 100 pages from the end of this book and it’s really late, he should go to sleep probably, but things are just getting _good_ and since Eliot’s not in here trying to sleep, why not just stay up until he finishes?

And of course the moment he has that thought, the door opens, and Eliot steps in. "Oh good, you're still up," he says. "Can I fuck you?"

"Uh." Quentin loses his place on the page. "Hello to you too. Isn't tonight Fen's night?"

"Yes, and she's sleeping like a baby, and I'll go back to her when we're done." Eliot is already shrugging off his shirt, starting to slide his flowing silk trousers down his hips. "But I couldn't fall asleep, and it seemed a waste to just jerk off by myself when I could come over here and see if you wanted to get off as well."

"You are so fucking spoiled," Quentin says.

"How dare you," Eliot says. "I am _selfless_ , I am choosing to share the bounty of my dick instead of keeping it all to myself. You don't _have_ to join in." 

He's arranging himself on the bed, now, all long bare limbs stretched out, running his hands down his own body in a way that should be cheesy but of course he makes it work. Quentin's eyes are drawn to him magnetically. It takes effort to remember to pop a bookmark into his book before he lets it fall from his fingers. Eliot closes his eyes as he rakes his fingers over his inner thighs, sighing happily.

Quentin could just watch him. That's always a fun choice. On nights when Eliot's horny and Quentin’s not as much, it's one of their favorite things to do, just let Eliot put on a show for him. Most nights what they have is just so fucking _sincere_ , and Quentin _loves_ it, but he also knows it gives Eliot a little bit of an emotional break to slip into a performance and just have fun with it instead of having the kind of sex that wrings whispered I-love-yous out of both of them no matter how playfully it started. They're never too far away from the knowledge that they've lost each other forty-plus times over, and it could happen again and it could stick this time. That shit gets into your sex life.

But that's not the point tonight, the point is Eliot wants to come so he can sleep and Quentin is thinking that, yeah, fucking sounds pretty good, actually. So he stands up, straightens his shirt, and stretches himself out next to Eliot on the bed.

Eliot's half-hard, still touching himself everywhere except his dick, eyes closed thinking of who-knows-what. (Quentin could make some educated guesses, but Eliot has a broad library of fantasies.) He cracks one eye open at the shift of Quentin's weight on the mattress. "Too many clothes," he says.

"So take them off me," Quentin says. "If you're interrupting my self care night I'm at least gonna make you work for it."

Eliot laughs at him and rolls over on top of him, pressing him down, chest on his chest and thighs on his thighs, hands framing Quentin's face and threading into his hair as they kiss. Quentin hums happily into Eliot's mouth. What a delight it is, to feel small but not in a bad way, protected instead of insignificant.

He does have to breathe, eventually, though, but fortunately Eliot figures that out before it's desperate and sits up a bit to start opening Quentin’s shirt. He thumbs Quentin's nipples, kisses the side of his neck and the curve of his shoulder. Quentin shudders.

"See?" Eliot says. His teeth graze Quentin's skin. "Isn't this better? You could have been in here all alone, wasting this—" His hand has found Quentin's dick, starting to fill inside his loose Fillorian-style pants. He strokes lazily through the fabric, fingers barely outlining the curve of the shaft as it hardens.

"I wouldn't _have_ that if you'd just stayed in your other room," Quentin says, squirming to try and get Eliot's hand to actually _grip_. 

"Well excuse me for my generosity," Eliot says. He's petting Quentin's inner thighs through his pants, now, pressing in to find his balls and roll them in his palm. Quentin tries to get a hand under Eliot's body to touch himself. Eliot grabs his wrist in an iron grip and presses his arm to the bed, not letting him. Quentin moans, feels Eliot's laugh against his collarbone.

"You have a weird definition of generosity," he manages, "considering you're not actually giving me what I _want_."

"Mm, and what do you want?" 

Quentin's fully hard, now, so he can feel the precision as Eliot slides one single finger slowly up the underside of his cock, leaving it just before it reaches the ridge of the head. He can feel Eliot hard against him, too, hot weight pressing into his thigh. He tenses his legs intentionally to grind up against him. "I want you in me."

"That," Eliot says, transitioning instantly to _actually_ undoing Quentin's pants and shoving them off, "can be arranged."

Quentin's ready to get right down to it, at that point, but Eliot insists on making out a little more, stroking Quentin's dick steadily, rolling them over so they're face-to-face on their sides and he can grab Quentin's ass. Quentin tries to give as good as he gets, getting a hand around Eliot's cock as well, but it's impossible to keep up a rhythm when he's distracted every two seconds by something new and wonderful. Eliot's mouth on his earlobe. Eliot licking across his lips, not staying long enough for the kiss Quentin wants to fall into. Eliot's fingers, slick with conjured lube, rubbing over the surface of his asshole but not breaching him. None of it is _new_ , technically, they do all of this all the time, but Eliot must be doing some fucking long term memory magic or something because it hasn't stopped being a revelation. That someone can want him so thoroughly, and find so many ways to touch him that make him feel like he's the reason, he's the center of it. Even when literally, the whole point of this is to get Eliot off.

Quentin gives up entirely on trying to do anything for Eliot as soon as there are fingers inside him, moving slow and deep. He just pants into Eliot's chest, curling his body to try and shove himself back onto Eliot's fingers even harder. And still Eliot takes his sweet time. He's pulled Quentin's top leg over his own so Quentin's splayed open, he could easily take another finger, almost-easily take Eliot's cock, but Eliot's not _giving_ it to him.

"Come _on_ , El," Quentin gasps, finally, fists clenching in the sheets.

"God you're needy," Eliot says. "Can't you just let me have my fun torturing you?"

"It's going to be fucking morning before you fuck me, at this rate, I thought the point here was to get you to sleep."

"Well all right, then, if you're so impatient." Quentin makes a disappointed noise as Eliot's fingers draw out of him. "Ride me."

Yes, Quentin can do that, that sounds _great_. He shoves at Eliot's hip (Eliot is already rolling onto his back of his own accord, but it's the thought that counts), scrambles up to straddle him, hands on his chest, Eliot's cock sliding under him. He slides back and forth on it, trying to make Eliot lose control. It's futile, as always. Eliot makes the most amazing noises and lets his head fall back, baring a long expanse of pale throat for Quentin to kiss, but he doesn't lift Quentin up and slide him onto his cock the way Quentin is deep-down hoping he will. One of these days Quentin is going to get Eliot to just fucking manhandle him as roughly and recklessly as he'd really like, as soon as he gets over his embarrassment enough to actually ask for it.

But tonight it's Quentin's job to sit up on his knees, grab Eliot's cock behind him, quickly repeat the lube spell to slick him up (more amazing noises from Eliot) and get in position. He breathes out carefully as the fat head of Eliot's cock stretches into him, settles in him with a tangible change in pressure, and then it's just the slow descent, Eliot filling him up inch by delicious inch until he can't take any more.

"Yeah," Eliot breathes, hands gently resting on Quentin's hips, not giving any direction, just providing stability. "Fuck, you're so fucking gorgeous like that."

"Like what?" Quentin asks, managing to stay coherent even though his legs are shaking and his skin is on fire. God, this is— if you'd asked him a few years ago if he liked it up the ass, he'd have said _I mean it just seems like it'd be uncomfortable and messy, I don't really get the appeal_. But he also would have said that magic wasn't real, so. Things change, in big ways.

"Splitting yourself open on my cock," Eliot answers, and Quentin can't help but bear down around him, _God_ it feels so good. "That tight little ass was fucking made to be fucked, I realized it the second I saw you—"

Quentin whines, embarrassingly, but it's the jolt he needs to get moving, flex his thighs and draw up off of Eliot's cock so he can push down onto it again, _yes_ , _more_. He arches his back as he does it, finds the angle with his hips to make the slide of Eliot inside him go from oh so good to blindingly pleasurable. He can't do that every stroke, he'll just come immediately. Or maybe that's a good idea? It really fucking feels like a good idea.

Eliot has other ideas, though, as his hands tighten on Quentin's hips and he plants his feet on the bed. "You get off on this so fucking quickly," he says. "I think I could make you come just teasing you enough and then bottoming out in you once, you love it so fucking much." He rolls up into Quentin as Quentin's coming down, turning Quentin's slow strokes into deep thrusts. 

Quentin's shaking, his cock smacking into Eliot's belly with every stroke and leaving little smears of pre-come. It's somewhere in that realm between jarring and pleasurable and it's keeping him just barely away from the edge, making his burning legs move faster to try and reach for it. That all changes when Eliot lets a hand slide down off Quentin's hip and wraps his long fingers around Quentin's cock, squeezing and stroking and rubbing his thumb over the slit. Quentin clamps down hard around Eliot’s dick, making it just feel _even bigger_ and more wonderful inside him, and every sensation teams up to catapult him into a shattering orgasm.

Eliot swears, his hand on Quentin's cock not stopping until there's no more come flowing past his fingers, pushes up hard into Quentin's ass even as Quentin stops riding him, legs giving out. "That's it, darling, that felt so fucking good—" he pulls Quentin down against him for the last few strokes, arms tight around him. "Fuck, yes, _Q._ "

Even as blissed-out as he is, Quentin makes himself focus on the throb of Eliot's cock inside him as he comes. It's the best kind of fullness. It's a souvenir, albeit a kind of gross one, a piece of Eliot he'll get to keep for at least a little while no matter what. He has all of Eliot, now, almost all the time, and he doesn't mind sharing but he does relish the little things that are absolutely by definition just for him. Like this specific orgasm, this come.

Again, kind of gross. He's not sure why he likes it. But Eliot's started to get through to him that he doesn't have to know _why_ he likes something, liking it is enough.

"Better than jerking off by yourself?" Quentin asks as he rolls lazily off of Eliot. He could easily clean up with a quick spell, but he doesn’t really feel like it. He just scoots over to what’s usually Eliot’s side of the bed so he can make sure the wet spot ends up over there.

"Marginally," Eliot drawls, and expertly twists away from the elbow Quentin aims at his ribs. "Thank you, Q," he says, voice dropping into sincerity. "You are so good to me." He leans over to kiss Quentin, soft and slow.

"It's mutual," Quentin says. "Now go sleep."

"Like a baby," Eliot says. He leaves the room with his pants low on his hips and his shirt over one shoulder, body language screaming _why yes I did just get laid_. Quentin rolls his eyes, cleans himself up, goes to settle into bed. Spots his book on the floor, bookmark so close to the back cover... and, well, he's already up too late. And the moons are still nice and bright. He'll just finish real quick.


	2. 6 weeks

In the aggregate, here are the things that should have made Quentin realize something was wrong:

When he came down to breakfast that next morning, desperate for a cup of coffee but having to settle for bitter Fillorian tea, and Fen looked from Eliot to Quentin to Eliot and got a strange expression on her face, but shook it off when Josh came in to ask for her help negotiating with the butcher.

When he felt a little dizzy and off a few days in a row, then was okay for a few days, then another day of nausea, and repeat, but always spread out far enough that there didn't seem to be a pattern.

When he suddenly couldn’t sleep through a full night because he had to get up and pee in the middle of the night, every single night, even though he normally only wakes up to use the bathroom if he’s sick or something.

When Margo blinked at him a bunch, then asked him if he was feeling okay, and muttered something about 'fucking fairy eye having a fucking migraine' when he said yeah, why?

When his energy level dipped, like really dipped, but not in his usual swing-into-depression way where he got all empty of emotion. He was plenty emotional, nearly crying at a completely fucking normal property dispute because it was just so beautiful that both of these families loved this willow tree so much. Fen looked at him in alarm and thankfully finished the case for him, letting him focus on slow breathing and blinking away the tears.

When he was the one to find the single pear in the bushel Josh had just bought that had started to rot, when everyone else thought it smelled fine, like _pears_ , but Quentin _knew_ he could smell something wrong and lo and behold, there was one going brown and disgusting and Quentin had to leave the room when it was unearthed.

In reality, here's the thing that actually makes Quentin realize something is wrong:

"Quentin," Fen says, very seriously and nervously, and Quentin looks up from his crossword puzzle with concern. "I have a very strange favor to ask you."

"Okay?"

"Can we— walk with me, would you?"

Quentin follows her, still frowning. This is... not a strange favor. He and Fen go on walks every once in a while, they both love to be out in the Fillorian countryside. But she's heading towards the stairs, not out to the gardens or anything. He follows her. He's a little winded when they get to the next floor, he's really gotta get out and do more hiking or something.

"Is everything okay?" he asks, knowing that's a silly question, because obviously it isn't. She doesn't answer, which is alarming. Then she stops outside the door to the healers' quarters, which is extremely alarming. "Fen, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Quentin asks, panicked. 

"Just trust me," she says, and ushers him inside.

The palace healer is sitting there, also looking concerned, and Quentin is really freaking out, now. Fen's sick, she's dying, he's going to have to be strong for Eliot and get him through this but he couldn't even get himself through his dad being sick, and there's no modern medicine here, can they sneak her back to Earth? Fuck, would she need health insurance? Maybe they can go to Canada—

The healer sits Quentin down on the end of one of the narrow beds and looks him over, then holds up a piece of blue glass, peering at him. And, okay, this is... better? That he's the one that has something wrong with him? Wait, that's not better. "I feel fine," he says. "Fen, what the fuck is going on?"

"About a month and a half ago," the healer says, not letting Fen speak, "do you recall having intercourse with anyone?"

Quentin reels back a bit, feeling himself blush. "What. I, um, I have—" he can't believe he's saying this. "I have— kind of a lot of intercourse? So, probably?"

"Intercourse in which a man spilled his seed inside you?"

What a fucking gross way to say that. "Yeah, sometimes."

"Try to think back to a specific night, the twelfth of Flinuary," the healer says.

"Um." Quentin tries to do the math in his head and gets tripped up on the weird forty-day Fillorian month. "Do you have like, a calendar? I don't really note down the dates, when I. I mean."

"The moons were overlapping that night," Fen interjects, finally saying something. "Do you remember that?"

Quentin thinks. "Yeah, that was cool," he realizes. "I'd never seen it before, does that happen often?"

"Once or twice in a generation," the healer says, her mouth set in a grim line. Quentin's curiosity about astronomy withers at her serious tone. "It's called the Cradle Moon, a gift from the gods to the people of Fillory."

"Okay?"

"As _everyone_ in Fillory knows," the healer says sharply, "the Cradle Moon is a great blessing of fertility. Couples who engage in intercourse under the light of the Cradle Moon can be assured of conceiving a child."

"That's cool for them?" Quentin is so fucking confused. 

"Assured," the healer continues, "whether they take precautions or not. Whether they intend it or not. Whether said intercourse would typically be procreative or not. The only way to avoid falling pregnant under the Cradle Moon is to abstain while it lights the sky."

"I mean, there are people who just can't get pregnant," Quentin points out. "Infertility is still a thing, right? And also like. Men."

The healer looks at him, her lips still pressed into that grim line. Fen looks miserable. Quentin has no idea what the fuck is going on.

"Can one of you just please tell me what I'm doing here?" he asks desperately.

"Lord Quentin," the healer says, "I never imagined I'd be saying this, but. You're pregnant."

Quentin can't have heard her right. "I, um. Sorry, what? _What?_ "

"It's going to be okay," Fen says, but she still looks scared and miserable. "We're here for you, we'll figure out what to do—"

"Look, I know that like, biology is not exactly an advanced science here, but like. No? I'm not?" Quentin is still so fucking confused. Not like, angry, but did they think this was going to be a funny joke? It's just baffling. "I have none of the body parts necessary, I don't have ovaries, I don't— I'm a guy. With a— That's not, it's not a thing."

"In normal circumstances, certainly," the healer says. "But the gods' blessing does not take such things into account. We've known it could happen for women who had been unable to conceive despite all our efforts. This is the first I've heard of it happening to a man, but there are those who have theorized about it. This case seems to be proof of concept."

That phrasing hits Quentin like a bucket of ice water tipped over his head. "You’re serious," he says faintly. "You’re really—" It still doesn't make any sense, but there's a weird feeling at the base of his spine, up the back of his neck. Like on some deeper level, maybe, it does. "Are you fucking— please tell me you're fucking with me, Fen, this—"

"I wouldn't," Fen says, shaking her head fiercely. "Not at all, but especially not about _this_ ," and Quentin knows she's telling the truth. 

He was a little nauseous earlier today, and that feeling is flooding back into his system. "I don't," he says, then gags, and the healer holds a basin in front of him exactly at the right time. 

"At least your symptoms are the typical ones," the healer says wryly, when he’s done. "I'll be monitoring your case very closely. This is truly a monumental discovery, Lord Quentin. I know it's strange, but it may also be wondrous." 

"I don't," Quentin says again, but he's not sure what the rest of the sentence is supposed to be. I don't understand? But he does, horribly. I don't want to be a discovery? Definitely. "What if I don't want this baby," he blurts out, suddenly.

This baby. Well, fuck. Now that he's said it out loud, it seems so real.

"We have solutions for that possibility too," the healer says calmly. "We'd just have to do some research, determine the best way to implement them in someone of your anatomy. Your options are open."

In someone of your— "How am I— I don't—" and now the end of the sentence is _have a vagina_ , which is indisputably true. "Where _is_ it?"

The healer picks up her blue glass lens again and motions for him to move his hands, which have involuntarily crossed tight over his chest. Quentin grips the end of the bed, white-knuckled. She passes the lens over his stomach, stops in a particular spot, and presses one finger against his abdomen, about an inch below his belly button.

“Right there,” she says.

The healer asks him a few dozen more questions, making notes on a long scroll of parchment, feeling his forehead and peering into his ears and listening to his stomach (stomach? belly? _womb_?) with a bronze horn thing. Quentin answers her, dazed, but absolutely draws the line at undressing so she can look at whatever might be going on between his legs.

"Not today," he says firmly, holding tight to the waistband of his pants. "If this is real, if— not today."

"As you wish," the healer says. "If anything changes, alert me immediately. I'd like to see you back next week."

"Okay," Quentin says. "Okay, I, uh. Can I go? Lie down?" He has no energy left for anything else.

"Of course. And my best wishes go with you," the healer says.

Fen follows him out of the room, and catches his elbow as he staggers a little bit. "Quentin," she says, and Quentin looks and sees she's still holding her face in a tight, miserable frown. "I'm— I truly don't know what to say."

"Why would you? I'm a discovery!" Quentin says, throwing his free hand into the air. He grabs a fistful of his own hair and pulls, trying to take deep breaths and distract himself from, well, life.

"I meant it, when I said we're here for you," she says. "I've been through this, so many women here have. You're not alone."

"Women is a really, really key word in that sentence," Quentin says. 

"You're still not alone," she repeats, shaking his elbow a little bit for emphasis. "Whatever you need, _whatever_ you need, if it's to figure this out or make it go away, I _will_ help you. You've literally faced the end of the world, Quentin. You can face whatever happens here too."

When she puts it like that, it's weirdly calming. "Yeah. Yeah. I, this is just, I thought—" Quentin bursts out laughing, hysterical. Fen looks at him in alarm. "I thought I was ready for whatever weird thing happened next. Like, I know my life is never going to be _normal_ , but I thought it'd be. _Understandably_ fucked up. And now I'm the fucking first person on this weird-ass planet to have this happen?"

"I should have warned you about the Cradle Moon," Fen says, looking stricken. "I just didn't even think that you wouldn't know about it. It's in half the fables I read growing up."

"I mean, if the fucking palace healer wasn't expecting this, I don't know how I have a right to hold you to a higher standard," Quentin says. "If we're going to blame anyone—" He falls silent.

"I haven't said anything to him, not even hinted," Fen says, correctly guessing what he's now thinking about. "That's your news to share, and I wasn't absolutely sure, anyway."

"I really do need to lie down," Quentin says, his voice sounding far away.

Fen stays with him the rest of the day, in the chair by the window of his bedroom. They don't talk, really. Quentin tries to nap — he’s still so tired, all the time, and now that maybe makes a little more sense — and manages it for a while. Fen sends a servant to grab his discarded crossword so he can finish it. The whole time, Quentin’s head swims with: this is happening. This is real. This is insane.

He just has no idea, _no_ idea, who to talk to about this. Julia would be the obvious choice for something this personal, but she has her own painful history with unwanted pregnancy that he really doesn't want to drag up for her. Margo, he thinks, will be of the "ugh, kids, if you don't want a baby just get the healer to give you a magical abortion" frame of mind, which, yeah. That option is open.

But as weird, spine-crushingly and throat-twistingly weird as this revelation is, despite what he said upstairs, Quentin... isn't sure he doesn't want a baby?

"If I— didn't go through with it," he says eventually, "would you hate me?"

Fen looks at him in shock, but her jaw clenches a bit. "No? Of course I wouldn't."

"It's just that you— you wanted Eliot's baby. You _had_ Eliot's baby. And it's so unfair that you had to go through that, and." Quentin can't make himself say it. The tears are welling up again, like with the willow tree thing, he just feels so _sad_ for her. He now knows what it’s like to have a child and lose it — with a dozen caveats, that his child was already an adult with a family of his own, that technically his child never existed, that all he has are memories from some other version of himself. But it still hurts, a searing, gouging pain. He can't even imagine how sharp Fen’s pain must be, having lost an infant, in this reality, just a couple of years ago.

"That has absolutely no bearing on what you should do," Fen says firmly. "My mother raised me right, your business is your business. The gods do what they will." Her lip quivers a little, at that. "If I'm meant to have another baby, it will happen, and if not, I have a wonderful family in you and Eliot and Margo and all the people of Fillory."

Quentin is full-on bawling, now. "How can you— _be_ like this," he says. "You're so kind to me, when I took your husband away from you and now I'm having his _baby_ , how are you this nice?"

"You didn't take my husband away from me," Fen starts. She's crying now too. "We should talk about that later, now is not the time, but that’s not what happened and you know it."

"And if I did go through with it," Quentin sobs, "would you hate me for that? Since I would have— something you never got, and should have had, and—"

"No!" Fen says, desperately, and she climbs onto the bed and wraps her arms around Quentin's shoulders. "No, I'd love you, I'd love the baby, it would be beautiful." Quentin cries harder and clutches at her arms, feeling wild but at least he has this one person to cling to.

That's more or less the scene Eliot walks into, a little while later, both of them hugging and crying and occasionally whispering half-sentences and strange compliments to each other.

"Hi," he says warily. "What's going on?" He takes a step back towards the threshold. "You didn't do an emotion jar thing again, did you? Are you brushing up on your battle magic to stage a coup?"

"No," Fen says, sitting up and wiping her face. "It's just been a strange day. We're fine."

"Q?" Eliot steps a little closer to the bed. Quentin understands his confusion — Quentin and Fen are perfectly friendly, but not exactly the tearful-cuddling kind of close. Except, apparently, now that the same guy's knocked both of them up.

"Fine," Quentin says, but his voice breaks in the middle of it. He hiccups a little, then just starts _laughing_ , wildly, rolling over to bury his face in the pillow when the laughter turns into something more like a scream. "Oh my god," he says into the pillow. "This is the fucking weirdest day of my life."

"Okay, that's an extremely alarming thing to say," Eliot says. "Really, what's going on?"

"I don't know if I can even tell you," Quentin says between gasps. "Fucking— sit down, El, you really fucking need to be sitting for this."

And he tells him.

Eliot doesn't believe him, of course. Fen chiming in helps a bit, but they do ultimately have to get the healer to come down and talk to him, show him through her blue glass lens that no, truly, this _is_ the weirdest day of Quentin's life.

"If you had told me," Eliot says into his hands, once the healer's gone, "when I was twenty, that within the next decade of my life I would have a wife, and knock her up, and that separately I would have a boyfriend and knock him up, I really don't know which one of those statements I would have believed less."

Quentin's sitting on the bed hugging his knees in front of him, Fen still sitting next to him, a constant anchor. The uncontrollable amusement has worn off, the weirdness of saying it out loud — "I'm pregnant" — is starting to recede. He suddenly feels scared, overwhelmingly, anxious that Eliot doesn't want this. Eliot, who loves him, he knows he does, but is still _Eliot_ , trying to hold on to some semblance of his hedonistic, carefree past. And this, when he had literally no reason to expect it could ever happen, is a _lot_. An unexpected pregnancy is a possibility you prepare yourself for, in some relationships, but not. You know. Ones where both people have dicks.

"Are you— okay?" he asks tentatively. 

Eliot doesn't answer for a moment, and Quentin hurriedly adds, "You know what, it's too soon to be asking that, I've had all afternoon to sit with this and you just found out. You're not okay. It's okay you're not okay, that's very— normal. A totally normal reaction to have." Fen puts a hand on his arm and he stops babbling, finally.

"I'm not _okay_ , but I'm _okay,_ " Eliot says, confusingly. He finally lifts his face out of his hands, looks at Quentin. He's pale, but not as ghost-pale as he was earlier, looking through the blue lens as the healer pointed out the tiny dot that was his — their — creation. "I haven't wrapped my head around this, not even a little bit," he clarifies. "But I'm not freaking out, strangely enough. I think I should be freaking out significantly more than I am."

"You can go somewhere else and freak out, if that's what you need to do," Quentin says. "I did plenty. Don't worry about me."

"No. I'm not going," Eliot says. He moves up to the bed next to Quentin on the opposite side from Fen, puts his arm around Quentin's shoulders and kisses his temple. "If you think about it, we've kind of done this before."

"More or less," Quentin agrees, tears welling up again. He wasn’t sure— obviously Eliot _remembers_ , they both do, but they haven’t exactly— talked about that part of it. There wasn’t really a reason to, and it just, it hurts. To think about. And so he wasn’t sure if Eliot would make the connection, or if it would be a good thing or a bad thing, if he did. That other Eliot had been forced into parenting by the circumstances, and now here this Eliot was, backed into that same corner again— 

But Eliot said he was okay, he said he was staying. He stayed. This will all be okay. Quentin leans his head on Eliot's shoulder. "I'm gonna be a dad," he says, trying the words out. They send a thrill through him, and he grins, a real, non-hysterical smile for probably the first time since he found out about this.

"My god," Eliot says softly. "You're going to be insufferable."


	3. 8 weeks

The people closest to them have to be told, sooner rather than later, before they start wondering why Quentin is taking two naps a day and can smell what Josh is cooking from the entire other side of the castle. The healer (whose name is Rue, Eliot learns it two seconds into their second checkup, and Quentin feels like an asshole for not asking earlier) says they don't even need to wait to tell anyone, pregnancies conceived under the Cradle Moon never decide to end themselves, so there's no danger of speaking too soon.

It goes about as well as you’d expect it to go:

Margo: "Are you _fucking_ kidding me? You're _fucking_ kidding me. Eliot there is no _fucking_ way your dick is so powerful it can put a bun where there isn't even a damn oven."

Josh: "Well okay, that's. Wow. Shit, stop eating that! Stop it, it has blue cheese in it! Isn't that a thing? When my sister was pregnant I swear that was a thing."

Julia: "Oh my god, Q. I don't even know how to respond to that. I mean, I'm— so happy for you if you're happy. That's. Give me a minute, I'm so sorry."

Penny: "Damn. _Damn_. Shit never ends with you, huh, Q?"

Kady: "Sure, why not. Congrats, mama."

There’s no getting around the need to tell Alice. Rue needs the Library's help to figure out if anything like this has happened before, and what Rue can do to help it go smoothly. Quentin is dreading telling Alice in person, but he knows he has to. It's the least he can do, after skipping out on their friend coffee dates two weeks running. (He missed the coffee, but couldn't face telling her, yet, so he made some excuse about an outbreak of centaur pox in the city.)

"You look good," Alice says, when he's finally settling into the seat across from her desk. "I mean, like you didn't have the centaur pox kind of good. Did you actually end up getting it?"

"No," Quentin says, shaking his head. "No. I didn't. I— Alice, there's uh. No way to say this that isn't weird. Um. There was no centaur pox. I'm pregnant."

Alice stares at him, and cocks her head a little to the side. "There was no centaur pox," she repeats.

"No."

"So the research I sent over on treatments..."

"I'm sure it'll come in handy in the future," Quentin says apologetically. "I'm sorry I lied, I couldn't figure out— how to tell you. I was still kind of. Figuring out how to deal with it myself."

"So yeah, then about that second part of what you said, are you _really_? Seriously?"

"Yep," Quentin says. He can't help smiling, even though it's probably not the right move, this week he's just been so _happy_ whenever he thinks about it. "Two months? We think. Well, we know, actually, exactly. We just don't know what— the rest of it's going to be like." He stops, swallows hard. "I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner."

"It's okay— Quentin, it's okay!" Alice says, and she's smiling? Frowning, but also smiling. "I'm happy for you, I think, as long as it's what you want."

Quentin beams. "Yeah," he says. "It is. Sorry, it just like, felt kind of weird to be like, hi ex-girlfriend, I'm having a baby with someone else."

"It's not like we were ever— on that road, anyway," Alice says. "We were twenty-two, I wasn't thinking about kids."

"Yeah," Quentin says hurriedly. "Definitely not. Me either."

Alice's face softens. Quentin worries that maybe her new glasses are thought-reading goggles. Or maybe he's just really obvious. "You know that would have been a disaster," she says. "I would have hated it, I never would have gone through with it. Not the way I was then, definitely." She shakes her head abruptly. "Anyway. I'm happy for you, and— Eliot? I'm assuming?"

"Yeah," Quentin says. He blushes so _easily_ nowadays, why is that? He resists shaking his head to hide behind his hair. "Um, so, we do need your help, also. I have a whole bunch of questions the healer wants to research."

"Yes," Alice says, straightening up, taking a sip of her coffee and going into professional Librarian mode. "Let's talk."

She takes copious notes about how this happened ("Are there any other names for the Cradle Moon, maybe in other languages? What day was it exactly?") and how he's been doing so far ("Rue and Fen say my symptoms are pretty normal? With the super-smelling and morning sickness and stuff? It's been pretty easy, honestly, I've been okay.") and what they need to know about what to expect ("I'm sure they don't really do C-sections in Fillory, but if there's somewhere for a fetus to grow, there's somewhere for us to cut it out of when we need to. Us meaning the healers, obviously! I will not be getting _any_ where near that.")

"Well, this request is going to the top of my priority list," she says finally, smiling at him. "I'm— I can't pretend I'm not fascinated by this, Q, but I don't want to— make it weird."

"It’s weird, there’s no making it anything else,” Quentin says, because it’s true, no matter how excited he is. “Weird has arrived. Weird will not be leaving." He stands, stretching out the dull ache in his lower back. 

Alice is looking at him curiously — specifically at his belly, he realizes, through his t-shirt. "Nothing to see there yet," he says, and she jumps a little, looks guilty. "But it's in there. I make Rue check through the blue glass like four times a week."

"Good," Alice says, nodding awkwardly. "I mean, yeah. I'm really happy you're happy, Q." She looks off to the side. "When I said earlier, that it would have been a disaster if we— that was all about me, honestly. You'd have been great. You're _going_ to be great."

"Thanks," Quentin says, and there are those tears again, like they were lurking around the corner of his brain waiting for a slightly emotional moment to strike. "Same time next week?"

"Same time next week," Alice says.


	4. 10 weeks

“I guess I thought our sex life would change, maybe?” Quentin says breathlessly, enjoying the friction of Eliot’s stubble along the side of his neck. “But nothing is like, different yet.”

“I already impregnated you once, I can’t do it a second time while the first one’s still in there,” Eliot says, then freezes. “I fucking hope I can’t, anyway.”

“There won’t be another Cradle Moon for like twenty years, El, we’re fine.”

Eliot goes back to kissing his way down Quentin’s neck, leaving beard burn and possibly hickeys in his wake but Quentin doesn’t care, he loves the chaos of this. His shirt got discarded somewhere between the dining room and here, hopefully it’s not in anyone’s way. His pants made it all the way inside the bedroom, thankfully. Eliot had been out east for a few days doing some complicated agricultural magic, and arrived home cranky, but when Quentin asked him what he needed after dinner was over Eliot thought for a second and then said “to have the gayest, most life-affirming sex I possibly can.” And that, Quentin can absolutely do.

Eliot’s hands are gripping Quentin’s upper arms, he’ll never get tired of those long fingers wrapping around him and _holding_ tight. Eliot licks along his collarbone, in the hollow of his throat, shimmies his body down so he can tongue at one of Quentin’s nipples.

“Oh!” Quentin basically shouts, shocked, and arches up off the bed. Fuck, that feels _great_. “Holy shit,” he says. His cock has just gone from ready-to-go hard to ready-to-explode hard.

Eliot looks up at him, fascinated, and does it again, and Quentin shouts _again_ , still just as surprised. “That’s different,” Eliot murmurs, and his breath ghosting over Quentin’s wet nipple is fucking _so good_ that Quentin shudders.

“Yeah uh, apparently,” Quentin says.

Eliot shifts positions, moving to hold Quentin’s wrists instead of his arms. “I really just want to explore this, a bit, see how sensitive you are now,” he says. “Can I?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Quentin moans, and Eliot smiles wickedly and ducks down, tonguing his other nipple and _that one’s just as good_. Quentin can’t believe it, he might be fucking crying. Eliot licks and licks and then moves on to sucking, gently and then harder. If Quentin had a single shred of focus anywhere other than his chest and his cock he’d be so thankful for their sound-dampening wards, or the guards would probably be at their door in a moment to see who’s being erotically murdered.

Eliot is holding his body carefully above Quentin’s so he can lean down and have full access to Quentin’s chest without touching anything below Quentin’s waist, no matter how Quentin arches and struggles. He’s got a steady grip on Quentin’s wrists, keeping them safely at his sides, so Quentin can’t even touch himself. And so it’s pretty surprising when Quentin feels something shift, as Eliot circles his tongue around and around Quentin’s nipple, and Quentin arches off the bed and says “Oh my _god Eliot_ ” disbelievingly and comes without being touched.

Eliot transitions beautifully, never slowing his assault on Quentin’s chest but getting one hand onto Quentin’s cock to stroke him the rest of the way through it. He doesn’t let up when Quentin collapses under him, still shaking, still not quite believing what just happened. And somehow that seems like the right move, because Quentin’s dick isn’t softening? Like, he’s _so_ sensitive, incredibly so, but he’s definitely still hard.

“Eliot,” he gasps. “Eliot, _ow_ , please,” and Eliot finally gives him a break, letting go and sitting back on his heels.

“Holy fuck, Q,” Eliot says. His face is red, his mouth is wet. He drags his fingers through the streaks of come on Quentin’s tingling chest, looks down at Quentin’s still-not-soft cock. “You really—? Do you think you could go again?”

“Oh my god,” Quentin says, for like the fiftieth time at this point, he’s usually more creative with his dirty talk. Tries to be. Eliot says he’s improving. “This is fucking uncharted territory, I have no fucking clue. _Nn_ ,” he finishes pathetically, as Eliot runs a single spit-wet finger along his cock. “Yeah, yep, I can.”

“Perfect,” Eliot says, and slides himself backwards to swallow Quentin’s dick.

Quentin can’t even manage an oh-my-god, this time, he’s beyond words. The sounds coming out of him are objectively funny, but he can’t pull together enough breath to actually laugh. Not with Eliot’s tongue sliding the length of his cock while it’s still inside Eliot’s mouth. He can’t even lift his head, he’ll just finish immediately if he has to look at Eliot’s curls falling in front of his eyes as he sucks Quentin down. He can’t _imagine_ what it’s going to feel like to have Eliot’s cock inside him like this, it’s going to be _agony_ in the best way. But then he does imagine it, and clamps down hard on nothing inside him and comes again, before he even realizes what’s going on.

“Oh fuck,” he gasps, as Eliot swallows everything he gives him and licks him clean. “Oh fuck oh _fuck_ , fuck.”

“Eloquent,” Eliot says. He’s got a cat-got-the-cream grin on his face (which, accurate, if gross?).

“I can’t do any more, El,” Quentin says. His heart is like a fucking freight train in his chest. His nipples still ache in the best way. “Fuck, I, it’s too much.”

Eliot crawls up next to him, kisses him deep. Quentin can taste himself on Eliot’s tongue. “That’s fine, darling, you did _very_ good,” he says. He pets Quentin’s forehead. “You are incredible. This is incredible.”

“You didn’t, though,” Quentin says. Eloquent. “You.”

“That was hot as fuck and I’m about a minute away from coming,” Eliot says. “Can I come on your chest, would you like that?”

Quentin makes a thoroughly overwhelmed whining noise and nods, and laboriously lifts his head so he can see Eliot’s hand working himself, fast. God his cock is gorgeous, Quentin’s mouth is fucking watering despite how exhausted he is. He loves the sight of it dark and heavy in Eliot’s hand. So good, and all for Quentin, every fucking inch of it, hard because _he’s_ here and Eliot’s so hot for him. Eliot sucks in a sharp breath and pushes himself up on one elbow, twists his hips toward Quentin, never letting up on his cock, and Quentin shudders at the hot drip of come across his body.

Eliot never collapses for long, after he comes, he’s great at getting himself up and starting whatever clean-up or cuddling process is needed. Tonight he stretches himself out next to Quentin, cleaning up their come with a practiced tut and then resting a hand on Quentin’s stomach. He twines his other fingers through Quentin’s, pulls their hands up near his face so he can press a gentle kiss to the inside of Quentin’s wrist.

“You really are incredible, Q,” he says. “In a very literal sense. I cannot believe half the things that are true about you.”

Quentin worms his way closer to Eliot’s chest. “I’m pretty fucking weird.”

“Fucking weirdly amazing,” Eliot says. He’s staring at Quentin’s stomach under his fingers. It looks the same as always, they’re only ten weeks into this. There’s been some confusion tracking the dates by month in the Fillorian vs Earth systems, but weeks are weeks in both places, so that’s what they’re going with. “I can’t believe I get to have this with you.”

Quentin swallows around a lump in his throat. “It’s wild, honestly,” he says. “I should be freaking out, right? Like a lot? But like— sure. This is what we’re doing. Nobody’s dying, the world isn’t ending.”

“Exactly the opposite of someone dying,” Eliot says into Quentin’s hair. “Jesus, Q, we’re gonna have a _kid_. A tiny half-baked human with an innocent blank slate of a mind who relies on us for its very survival.”

“That is what kids are, yeah.” Quentin takes a deep breath and decides to take the risk, because they have to— be able to at least mention this. They have to. “You know that, we did this already, remember?”

Beside him, Eliot tenses, just a bit, but they’re pressed so close together that Quentin can feel it, and his happy post-orgasm buzz vanishes under a tidal wave of anxiety. But after an agonizing moment Eliot sighs and says, “I’m going to have to change so many more diapers this time, now that it’s actually mine, officially.”

“Hey, no paternity tests done so far, you could be off the hook,” Quentin says, relaxing. “We’ll see if it’s born with absurdly long limbs and impeccable bone structure, then you’ll know it’s yours.”

Eliot squeezes his hand and kisses him, long and slow, and Quentin thinks of what Eliot said a minute ago: _I can’t believe I get to have this with you._

The feeling is mutual.


	5. 13 weeks

Even with the Library’s vast resources at her disposal, Alice can’t instantly find all the information they’re looking for, so she and Quentin have a couple more of their normal friend dates before they circle back around to the topic of Quentin’s pregnancy:

One where Alice talks Q’s ear off about theoretical frameworks of text-copying spells and translation spells and Q nods along happily because she got him a huge pumpkin spice latte and he’s been craving one for weeks.

One where they play this weird version of chess that some traveling mystic brought to Whitespire, where there’s the normal board and then there’s the spiritual, ethereal board above it where pieces go when they’ve been captured to try and regain their good karma and come back on the board, or something.

One where they get to go around and shelve books, because Alice is having one of her The Boss Should Know What The Underlings Do days, and Quentin keeps nearly pushing the cart into shelves because he’s trying to read the spines of everything they pass.

Finally he shows up, looks for her in her office, and finds a note directing him to a specific section where she needs to grab just one more thing before she can give him some answers.

“There’s really almost nothing verifiable out there,” Alice says, stacking another book onto the growing pile in Quentin’s arms. “Tons of legends from across the multiverse, folktales, literature, but nothing concrete. I thought I had one, with a famous warrior from a little-known planet who bore a child, but turns out she was a woman in disguise the whole time.”

“Rue said it works for women who are infertile,” Quentin says. “Anything there that could help us?”

“It does, I found a number of testimonials, but obviously with Fillorian medicine the way it is there’s not a lot to go on in terms of _how_ it actually works. We don’t exactly have bloodwork on these women’s hormone levels or tests of their partners’ sperm count, nothing that tells us why they weren’t getting pregnant before and what the magic might have changed.” Alice steps lightly off the ladder, then turns to Quentin. “Are you supposed to be lifting that much? Here, give me—”

Quentin rolls his eyes as she takes half the books off of the stack. “So we just, have no ideas? Great.”

“I said there was _almost_ nothing verifiable out there,” Alice says, walking briskly down the endless halls to her office. “The best thing I have is this woman, Pimna, who lived in Fillory about four generations ago. She had— we would think of it as cervical cancer, and there was this healer at the time who was working on magical surgery, actually pretty good at it. Mostly good at it. But he operated on Pimna and removed her uterus to remove the cancer, and she survived.”

Quentin lets out a low whistle, and Alice grimaces. “Yeah, I can’t imagine it was pleasant. But then a few years later, Pimna happens to sleep with her husband under the Cradle Moon, and she winds up back at the healer’s door complaining of swelling and cravings and all sorts of things she shouldn’t be experiencing, and the healer checks her out and she has a uterus again. And it’s,” Alice shrugs, “Occupied.”

Quentin nods slowly, mulling that over. His belly hurts, or is he imagining that?

“I think that’s what’s happening with you, essentially,” Alice says, as they arrive back at her desk. Quentin sits down, and Alice starts sorting quickly through a stack of files, pulling documents out here and there and compiling them into a neat grey folder. “Clearly the magic is strong enough to grow a uterus if a uterus isn’t already present, and that seems like what Rue says you’re doing. What Pimna’s case doesn’t tell us is if the magic can do anything beyond that — her uterus appeared back right where the original one had been, and she already had a built in, um. Exit. So we don’t know if the magic will take care of that too.”

“No sign of anything like that yet,” Quentin says in a slightly strangled voice, not meeting Alice’s eyes. “So um, Pimna, did the new uterus go away when she had the baby, or?”

“We’re not sure,” Alice says, sounding uncomfortable. Quentin looks up at her and she’s biting her lip. “She, ah, died in childbirth. Hemorrhaged and bled out.”

“Well _that’s_ comforting,” Quentin snaps, then winces. “Sorry. I just. This fucking bigshot healer couldn’t save her?”

“Apparently it’s not quite as high profile to deliver babies as it is to do experimental surgery,” Alice says grimly. “He couldn’t be bothered.”

“ _Fuck_ Fillory,” Quentin says emphatically.

“My thoughts exactly,” Alice says, handing him the grey folder and two books. “That’s why I think you and Rue should go see Lipson. Between Rue’s knowledge of how this phenomenon works and Lipson’s medical knowledge, I’m sure they can come up with something.”

“If Alice says they can come up with something, then they can come up with something,” Eliot tells him later that evening. “She’s the smartest person either of us knows. You’re going to wear a groove in the carpet if you keep pacing, Q.”

“But what if they can’t?” Quentin asks, for probably the sixth time. He’s angry and he’s crying, he’s angry-crying, and they already had dinner but he’d really like some more of those little lamb dumplings. Like, right now. A whole plate of them, if possible. “What if trying to give birth just, ruptures all my internal organs and kills me and I don’t even get to meet the baby? What if we just think it’s a baby, and really it’s a fucking chestburster from Alien?”

“You know that last one’s not happening,” Eliot says. “I fucked your ass, not your face. What?” he says when Quentin glares at him. “It’s a seminal horror classic and Sigourney Weaver is an icon, of course I’ve seen it. Q. Quentin.” He un-sprawls with a groan and stands up from the bed, and stops Quentin in his tracks with hands on his shoulders. “I’m not going to let _anything_ happen to you,” he says, and folds Quentin into his arms for a hug.

Quentin sighs against his shoulder. “Last week I was so happy,” he says. “This week I’m freaked the fuck out, apparently. We have how many more of these to go?”

“About twenty-seven, if you do the usual forty,” Eliot says. “Which we have no reason to think you wouldn’t,” he adds when Quentin starts trying to talk again, “But that’s why we’re going to go to Earth with Rue and see Lipson and get a second opinion. And we’re going to keep checking in with Rue every week, more often if necessary, and if anything tries to burst through your chest and haunt this wet wet spaceship we call life we’ll deal with it. Sound good?”

“That was. There were some mixed metaphors in there.” Quentin sighs again, actually feeling a little relieved for the first time since he got back from the Library. “Okay. Can we go next week, maybe, so we have time to get everything set up? Or do you need to be in on the next round of trade talks?”

“We can go, Margo’s giving me unlimited paternity leave,” Eliot says. “Trying to dismantle this godforsaken kingdom’s patriarchal bullshit one strange queer baby-daddy’s benefits at a time.”

“God, at least it’s not obvious yet,” Quentin says, disentangling himself from the hug and flopping face-up on the bed. “It’s going to be weird enough telling Lipson why we’re there, I don’t need to run into anyone else I know and have them notice.”

“Uh, Q?” Eliot says. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“I mean. Every day when I brush my teeth?”

“No, the full length mirror,” Eliot says. He steps in front of Quentin, holds his hands out so Quentin can grab them and Eliot can haul him up. Eliot walks to his wardrobe, the one Quentin doesn’t touch because he might disturb the precious shirts, and swings the door open until Quentin can see himself in the mirror, head to toe.

Quentin looks at his reflection — pretty normal? — and Eliot steps over, gently swivels his shoulders so he turns to the side.

“Oh my god,” Quentin breathes. 

“My thoughts exactly,” Eliot says.

It’s not huge, and Quentin’s never been a perfectly-flat-abs kinda guy, so if you didn’t know you _could_ still mistake it for something else, but— Quentin’s belly is rounded, just enough to push against the loose fabric of his shirt at its peak. He puts his hands on it, gently, like he’s sure it’s an illusion — but no, it’s there, he can touch it, and when he slides his hands back to his sides to pull his shirt taut it’s even more obvious.

“Oh my god,” Quentin says again, and lifts up his shirt. Still not an illusion, definitely real. _Definitely real._ He cups his belly with shaking fingers. “El. El, I— fuck, I’m _pregnant_.”

“Yes, darling, you are.” Eliot leans down to kiss his shoulder. “And you’re gorgeous.”

“Fuck,” Quentin says, awed. “Wait, am I—” he pulls his shirt all the way off and turns to the side again. “I’m definitely growing boobs,” he says flatly.

“Babies gotta eat,” Eliot says. 

“How are you so calm about all this?” Quentin asks fiercely. “This is _not_ normal, this is— I'm not supposed to— you're dating me because I'm a _man_ , shouldn't this be more weird to you?"

Eliot pauses. "Okay, let's take a moment and have a little sexuality 101 chat," he says. "I am not dating you because you're a man, I'm dating you because you're the man I _love_. And even if I was, I can appreciate a nice pair of tits as much as the next person. I do occasionally dabble in women."

"Very occasionally," Quentin mutters, "and not willingly."

"You think I never shared a girl with Margo before you came along? That was willing. I'm too fabulous to be all one thing all the time, Q, there's too much Eliot to go around for that. And even if we're going to take the most essentialist view of things, which we aren't," he adds, sliding one hand down the front of Quentin's body, below his belly, to the front of his pants, giving his soft dick a gentle squeeze, "you've still got what gets me going the most. Anything else is just a bonus."

Quentin squirms out of Eliot’s grasp, turns, steps back into Eliot’s arms and lays his head on Eliot's chest. "I go back and forth so fast between okay and terrified," he says. 

"And that's different from your normal state how, exactly?"

“Fuck off,” Quentin groans, grinding his face against Eliot’s sternum.

"Come on." Eliot kisses the top of his head again. "Let's get some rest. I don't know how I'm going to haul your pregnant ass out to the portal tree next week, we may have to get a taxi-ride from Penny."

"Eliot," Quentin says suddenly, "can traveling hurt the baby? Should we even be going through the portal? What if—"

"Sh-sh-sh-shhh," Eliot says, putting a finger on Quentin's lips. "No stress. No worrying. I cannot get you drunk to calm you down, so here's what's going to happen. We're going to lie down on the bed. I'm going to give you a foot massage. And you're going to be asleep in like ten minutes because your body is growing a human and that takes a lot of energy."

"Okay," Quentin says forlornly. "But if I pass out halfway through the foot massage you still have to finish."


	6. 14 weeks

For once in their lives, Quentin understands what it must be like to be Eliot and give a shit about what you wear, because on the morning they’re supposed to go to Earth for his appointment with Lipson, he tries on and discards:

One of his normal grey t-shirts, black jeans, a hoodie (the shirt’s a tiny bit too tight across his stomach),

A Fillorian wrap shirt, loose Filllorian pants, a scarf (way too weird to walk around Brakebills in, they don’t need to draw that much attention),

A Fillorian wrap shirt, black jeans, and a hoodie (somehow the jeans make the wrap shirt pull even tighter across his belly than the t-shirt did?),

One of Eliot’s least favorite button-downs (no, no, there are gaps between a bunch of the bottom buttons and the sleeves are way too long),

Maybe like, some kind of tunic thing? Could it be fashion forward? (vetoed by Eliot, and anyway it had the same problem as the full-on Fillorian outfit about walking around Brakebills looking weird),

One of Josh’s shirts, since they’re cut bigger (but they’re all wrong in the shoulders and boy was that an embarrassing conversation, Quentin wishes he hadn’t asked).

Eventually Eliot figures out how to cast a very, very limited enlargement charm on the original grey t-shirt that only enlarges the bottom half, and they collect Rue from upstairs and take the carriage to the portal tree, only a few hours later than they had planned.

The blue glass lens in the Brakebills infirmary is attached to a big screen on wheels, presumably like a regular ultrasound machine, not that Quentin would actually know. The little curved blob that is their baby sure looks much bigger when you zoom in on it like this, though.

"Coming along nicely," Lipson says. "You're fourteen weeks? You're right on track." She makes a complicated tut over the surface of the lens, and golden lines of light appear on the screen. She moves the lens away from Quentin's belly to zoom out. "Definitely god-magic. I don't see any sign that the magic is continuing to grow or change, though. Seems like conception is as far as its effects go — it gets the ball rolling, your body does the rest."

"That's what I've been guessing," Rue says from her seat in the corner. She and Lipson are getting along like a house on fire, a mutual professional respect blossoming as soon as Lipson stopped saying "What?" and got down to business. "There have been a few cases where children have been successfully removed from the womb when the mother is in distress and can’t continue laboring, and I believe those spells will be functional here, but Lord Eliot says you may have even more advanced techniques?"

"We'll compare notes after I do some bloodwork," Lipson says. "This is a huge opportunity for study, I know at least two people personally who will be very interested in figuring out how this spell works. The implications for infertility treatments alone, not to mention hormonal disorders, gender confirmation..." She puts the lens down. Quentin's baby disappears from the screen, and he reluctantly looks over and sees her picking up a lot of vials. Like, a lot.

"I think I need some blood to keep growing this baby," he says warily. "You can't take all of it."

"We'll hydrate you up, get some good prenatal vitamins in you. You're doing great," Lipson says. "Rue, your surgical spells, do you use the Barrow method or the Liesnkrantz for blood vessel repair afterwards?"

Quentin fumes silently while she takes probably way too much of his blood, talking shop with Rue the whole time. Finally she heals up the needle mark and pats him on the shoulder. "You're all set. I'll have more to tell you by the end of the day."

She and Rue are already looking at one of the Library's books Rue brought with her, heads bent together over it and talking about things Quentin doesn't understand. Eliot, who has been totally silent and fucking _texting_ this whole time, squeezes his hand and helps him off the bed.

Quentin at least manages to wait until they're out of the room before he explodes. "They could at least acknowledge I'm more than a fucking science experiment. Like I'm glad to help people but also I'm a person myself? Right now? Who is _having a baby_ with a body that _isn't supposed to do that_?"

"It's bullshit, my love," Eliot says. "But they're doing what we need them to do, at least, they’re putting their heads together. We'll have some more answers soon.” 

“And _you_ ,” Quentin says, rounding on him. “What the fuck kind of partner just, sits on his phone while his pregnant boyfriend gets half his blood drained? Why did you even fucking come with me?” Angry tears are prickling at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t expect Eliot to like, ask a bunch of questions, or anything, but he thought he might at least _pretend_ to be interested in whether Quentin was going to be able to deliver this baby without fucking dying.

Eliot opens his mouth, shuts it again. “Okay, I’m sorry, I see now how that must have looked,” he says. He puts his hands on Quentin’s shoulders. “But I think you’re going to forgive me in a moment. I have a surprise for you. Let’s walk."

"What? Eliot—" Quentin tries not to cross his arms in front of his chest, that just pulls his shirt tighter across his body. "Where are we going? I can't see anyone, what if they figure it out?"

"We're not leaving campus, and the only person we're seeing already knows." Eliot turns him around and steers him carefully onto the path. Quentin goes along with it, simmering with anger. 

He tries not to look anyone in the eye as they walk. Not that anyone's actually looking at him anyway. Nobody left at Brakebills knows him — he's been questing and adventuring and averting the apocalypse for so long that all the faces are unfamiliar. Did he make any kind of mark on this place, during his short time? Does anyone think about him, miss him?

Then they turn the corner behind the library and Quentin stops dead, his heart twisting in his chest.

"Do you forgive me yet?" Eliot murmurs in his ear, kissing him on the side of the head.

Julia leaps up from the picnic table and strides toward him for a hug like she’s just barely keeping herself from running. Quentin meets her halfway and squeezes her back as hard as she squeezes him, burying his face in her shoulder.

“Fuck, it’s so good to see you, Jules. I thought you were in the middle of running Kady’s hedgewitch bootcamp thing? In like, El Salvador, or wherever?”

“Perks of dating a Traveler,” Julia says. “A half-day off work doesn’t mean I can only go half a day from where I’m living.” She hugs him tighter once more and lets him go. “I felt so bad that we hadn’t actually talked since you told me. I was worried you thought I was, I don’t know, mad at you.”

“No, I didn’t think that at all,” Quentin lies, because he has _definitely_ been worried about it. But he’s also worried about the magician-CIA people who keep trying to break through the wards on their hedgewitch training compound, and that’s not worth bringing up right now, so the other thing isn’t either.

“So, let’s see,” Julia says, gesturing in the general direction of his stomach. Quentin glances around nervously, then smooths his hands over the front of his shirt, pulling it taut over his tiny bump. “Oh my god, Q,” Julia coos, putting both hands on her cheeks. “This is wild. I can’t believe it.”

“Just try and get a decent night’s sleep with him getting up to go to the bathroom every thirty seconds, you’d believe it then,” Eliot says, from the picnic table where he’s already ensconced himself and started poking through the takeout containers Julia brought.

“Are you doing the glowing thing yet? The pregnant woman— pregnant person glow?” 

“I don’t even know,” Quentin says. “I feel better this week than the past few, I’m not so tired all the time. Ooh, is that orange chicken? Fuck, I’ve been wanting some for _days_.”

“Eliot’s been texting me all morning so I’d know what to bring,” Julia says, grinning.

They sit and they eat (and after a while Julia and Eliot just watch Quentin continue to eat with an air of fascination), and it’s an interesting dynamic, Julia and Eliot, two of the people Quentin loves most in the world who don’t really know each other well but are linked through him. Julia can’t say too much about her work, since they’re sitting in the middle of Brakebills and it’s not exactly a project the magical establishment approves of, but she’s got some fun stories about the lizards that manage to get _everywhere_ in the compound. Penny can apparently be shocked into Traveling naked out of the shower when he tries to reach for his shampoo and ends up holding a small wet reptile instead. 

Eliot offers to send a delegation of talking lizards to try and convince them to behave themselves. “They owe us, anyway,” he says bitterly. “We gave them the entire south half of that swamp, and they haven’t even made a dent in the mosquito-borne illness numbers.”

When Quentin is finally full, he yawns, and Eliot smiles and pulls a picnic blanket out of his backpack.

“I’m so lucky to have you guys,” Quentin says, choked up.

Julia hugs him tight before she leaves. “You’ve got this, Q,” she says into his neck. “This baby’s gonna have the best, sweetest dads anyone’s ever had.”

It takes more effort than it should for Quentin to actually get down onto the picnic blanket, but he manages it eventually, and snuggles his head onto Eliot’s lap. He grabs for Eliot’s hand, kisses his palm. “I forgot to say earlier,” he says, when Eliot looks down at him fondly. “I forgive you.”

“I thought you might,” Eliot says.

Quentin naps on the grass with his head on Eliot’s lap for a while, then it’s time to go back and hear from Lipson that everything is perfectly healthy, they’re not going to see any spontaneous vagina development but as far as she’s concerned Rue can handle the c-section, and then they’re heading back through the portal, on their way home.


	7. 15 weeks

Quentin sidles up behind Eliot in between discussion sessions with the ambassadors of the Kingdom Across the Sea and tugs on his sleeve a little, and Eliot follows him out of the room and into the foyer.

“Can we,” Quentin asks, feeling like he’s red to his hairline. “Can we take um, a break? And go have sex?”

“Now?” Eliot says. He’s wearing that one blue shirt with the open neck, which is really what started this whole thing, Quentin spotted a shadow of chest hair across the table and wanted to _bite_ and he has no idea what was said in the meeting after that. “Can it wait?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, fidgeting from one foot to the other. “Um, you don’t need me for the rest of the meeting, though, right? I can go? I can be back after lunch.”

“Oh my god, Q,” Eliot says, like he’s trying to sound exasperated but is actually just very turned on. “Fine, we’ll be quick—” He waylays a serving boy and gives him a message to pass to Margo, then has to jog to catch up with where Quentin’s already halfway down the hall and turning the corner towards their bedroom.

“What brought this on all of a sudden?” he asks as Quentin is impatiently getting him out of that beautiful shirt, getting his hands all over Eliot.

“I have no idea, hormones,” Quentin gasps. He feels breathless already, they’ve barely kissed. “I just, I _want you_ so badly, I fucking have to have you in me.”

“Fuck,” Eliot mutters, and grabs Quentin’s wrists, uses them to pull him in for a deep kiss. “You might actually tire me out if you keep this up. This is what, four times in the last two days?”

“With you, yeah,” Quentin says. When Eliot draws up sharply he laughs and says, “I’ve jerked off like, I don’t know. Three other times?”

“Jesus, Quentin,” Eliot says, letting go of Quentin’s wrists. Quentin seizes the moment to deal with the rest of the pieces of clothing between him and what he wants. “You’re going to chafe.”

“Lube,” Quentin says shortly. “Magical stuff.” He grabs Eliot’s neck, pulls him down to kiss him. “El, _please_ —”

“Fuck,” Eliot says again, and wraps an arm around Quentin’s waist, drags them closer together. Quentin makes a pleased noise when their cocks jar together, Quentin’s achingly hard, Eliot’s rapidly getting there. His belly is a noticeable presence between them, not quite in the way yet, but as Eliot presses their bodies together Quentin feels the heat of his skin there before he can feel it anywhere else.

“How do you want it this time?” Eliot asks against the shell of Quentin’s ear as he walks them carefully back towards the bed. “My cock inside you, yeah, but how? Tell me.”

Quentin whimpers. He thinks his brain is overheating. “God, so fucking deep,” he says desperately. 

“That’s a given,” Eliot says. “You want me behind you, under you?”

Quentin has no answer for that, he just kisses Eliot hard and messy, grinds against his leg.

“Okay, dealer’s choice, then,” Eliot says finally, once he’s gotten a hand into Quentin’s hair and physically pulled their faces apart. Quentin is torn between leaning back against his fingers and leaning forward so he’ll be tugging harder on Quentin’s hair. Eliot sits Quentin down on the bed with a firm hand on his hip, pushes him back to lie down. Quentin moans as Eliot drops to his knees and hoists Quentin’s legs over his shoulders.

Eliot doesn’t take his time — he spreads Quentin’s ass open and dives in with his tongue. Quentin moans again, trying to shove his hips forward to meet Eliot’s mouth. Eliot’s grip on him keeps him still. He could touch himself, but he’s already going to finish so fucking quickly with Eliot’s tongue licking him open and _fucking inside him, fuck_. He doesn’t want to come yet, he wants that _cock_ , when he closes his eyes he can see an image of it, heavy and thick and hard. He licks his lips, making an incoherent noise when Eliot moves a hand to play with his balls as he rims him.

“Eliot, come _on_ ,” he finally manages to say.

Eliot’s mouth leaves his ass and Quentin groans, groans again when it’s replaced by lube-covered fingers. “If we’re going to fuck this often, we can’t skimp on the prep, you’ll actually hurt yourself,” Eliot points out, way too logically for Quentin’s liking. He’s still thinking with his brain, Quentin needs him thinking with his dick. 

Quentin bears down to make himself tighter on Eliot’s fingers. “I know, I know you’ll take care of me—” Eliot sucks in a sharp breath and Quentin shudders triumphantly. “You make me feel so fucking good, every fucking time, you fit in me so perfectly. I could fucking live with your dick in me all day, stretching me open—”

Eliot lets out a noise like he’s been punched and stands, settling Quentin’s feet on the bed. “You asked for it,” he says. His voice is rough and deep and Quentin _loves_ when Eliot gets this way. He pushes into Quentin with one smooth stroke, and Quentin arches his back and just enjoys it.

“We could make that happen, you know,” Eliot says in that same rough voice as he starts to move, really getting himself all the way in with every stroke. “Get you a plug, something nice and big—” he bottoms out and Quentin moans— “just the way you like it. Keep you ready for me, so whenever you feel like interrupting my _actual_ work—” he’s picking up the pace, Quentin fists his hands in the bedspread and holds on for dear life, mouth hanging open in a delirious gasp— “I can just fucking slide right into you and fuck you hard with no waiting."

"Yeah," Quentin chokes out. Eliot's slamming into him _hard_ , he can feel the shockwaves all through his legs and up his spine.

"Yeah? It doesn't sound like you really want it, if that's all the enthusiasm you can muster."

"I want it, I want it _please,_ " Quentin moans. He has to close his eyes, there are too many amazing things happening to his body, he can't feel them all and _also_ look at Eliot's face, feral and wild. So he doesn't see it coming when Eliot suddenly grabs his cock with a lube-slick palm, and Quentin bucks desperately up into his grip. Eliot doesn't move his hand, though, just keeps a firm grip on his cock, the only motion Quentin can get comes from the rocking of his whole body as Eliot fucks into him. "Eliot, fuck—"

"Did you want something else, Q?" Eliot asks. It's amazing he can still manage to sound sweetly innocent in that deep rasp, with his cock sliding into Quentin's ass up to the hilt.

"Let me come," Quentin whines. "I’m so close, make me come—"

"Oh, _you_ want to come? Do you have any idea how _hot_ you are when you're squirming like this, though, I'm— oh fuck—" Eliot's hips lose their rhythm but not their force, he slides fast and deep inside Quentin and comes hard, his hand still gripping Quentin's cock and not moving.

He doesn't collapse over Quentin, somehow, and finally his thumb slides up the vein on the bottom of Quentin's dick and smooths over the head and that's all it takes. Quentin feels himself squeezing around Eliot's cock still half-hard and filling up him, paints his belly with streaks of come.

"Oh my god, El," he says through gasps, legs still shaking even though his dick has stopped spurting. " _Fuck_."

"I don't know how many times I can do that a day, Q," Eliot says, also still breathing hard. He eases himself carefully out of Quentin, sprawls on the bed beside him. They stare at the ceiling side-by-side. "We really should get you some toys. I do occasionally have to help run this country."

"Mm, but why, though?" Quentin asks. His dick nearly jumped again when Eliot said _toys_ , it's been fucking _forty seconds_ tops.

"So our progeny can have a better, brighter Fillory to grow up in." Eliot turns just his head towards Quentin, does a quick clean-up spell before he rests a hand on Quentin's bump.

"I think— you remember when Arielle was this far into being pregnant?"

"Yeah, and neither of you were any fucking help with the mosaic for two months?" Eliot says. "Was that this?"

"I think so." Quentin laughs shakily, closes his eyes. "I thought I was just that good, I guess, but these hormones are something else."

"You are that good," Eliot says reassuringly. Quentin hears the rustle of covers, and Eliot's hand cups his cheek, turns his face for a slow kiss. "In fact, if you could be just slightly less good, that might be ideal. Then I could turn you down once in a while."

"I offered to take this one myself," Quentin points out.

"Yeah, but you just love getting dicked down so much, how can I ever say no to you?" Eliot groans and gets up, goes to rearrange his hair into less of a sweaty mess in front of the mirror.

"Maybe it'll pass soon," Quentin says. He cups his belly in both hands — he likes to think it gets a little bigger every day. He see-saws back and forth between impatience, wanting it to grow faster, and being pretty weirded out by how his skin has started to stretch, the dark line that's appeared running down his center. Rue says it's all normal. Rue is getting frustrated with him, he thinks, but he can't stop asking questions.

"In the meantime I'll ask Penny to bring us some goodies back next time he stops by." Eliot is mostly dressed. That blue shirt is so lovely on him. Wait—

"You are _not_ telling Penny to buy me sex toys," Quentin says, shoving up onto his elbows, then sitting up with some effort. "Oof. No fucking way."

Eliot smirks at him. "Good, you're actually paying attention. Not too much pregnancy brain happening yet."

"I'm not going to get pregnancy brain," Quentin grumbles.

"You're getting pregnancy everything else, why not that?" Eliot stops by the bed as he finishes fastening the buttons at his cuffs. "Don't worry, Q. I'll take care of you." He frames Quentin's face in his hands, kisses him gently.

Quentin leans up into the kiss, a warm feeling washing over him head to toe. "I know you will," he says.


	8. 19 weeks

This is a nightmare. This whole thing is a nightmare, Quentin’s sure of it, a joke from Fillory’s fucking terrible dead gods to fuck up his relationship with Eliot. Because in the last month, they’ve fought more than they ever have:

When Eliot crawled into bed with him in the middle of the night, shitfaced, and accidentally woke Quentin up after he had _just_ managed to get to sleep after hours of heartburn and tossing and turning.

And then when he did it again the next week.

When Quentin actually forgot Eliot’s birthday, turns out pregnancy brain is in fact a real thing, but not a good enough excuse to make Eliot not be annoyed at him for forgetting. 

When Eliot made a comment about needing to put more enlargement charms on Quentin’s shirts and Quentin _went off_ and threw a pile of Eliot’s shirts out the window into the gardens below.

When it would usually be Fen’s night, but she was off on a diplomatic trip, so it should have been Quentin’s night instead but Eliot wanted to spend it alone, or maybe with someone else, who knows, just anybody but Quentin, apparently.

When Quentin wanted to have sex like they used to, face to face and intense kisses and I-love-yous as they come, and Eliot had brushed him off and given him a blowjob while jerking himself off and gone right to sleep afterwards.

That last one hurts, badly. Quentin lays on his side, curled away from Eliot, listening to his soft breathing and trying to convince himself not to cry. The moonlight is bright through the window. Quentin feels like it’s mocking him. Why him? Why give him this so-called blessing, when he’s such a fucking mess, and this is only making things worse? 

He’s known all along it was only a matter of time before things fell apart with Eliot. It’s just a law of nature: whatever would be the worst possible thing that could happen to one of Quentin’s relationships, that’s what’s definitely going to happen. So of course when he’s drowning in love for this man who hates to be tied down or confined or anything that can make him less gloriously _him_ , the gods decide to fuck things up with a biologically impossible accidental pregnancy and now Quentin’s in too far, he wants this baby.

And he’s losing Eliot because of it.

He doesn’t know when sleep actually overtakes him, but he wakes up with that up-too-late-asleep-too-long fuzz behind his eyes when the sun is already high in the sky. He rolls over, and his hand lands on bare sheets. Eliot is gone. Quentin knows realistically that he’s gone because he’s got actual work to do. They’d like to break ground on the power plant this year and Eliot’s been in tense negotiations with the colony of talking prairie dogs who live where they’d like to build it. So it’s really no big deal.

It probably can’t hurt for Quentin to get used to waking up alone, anyway. He’ll be doing plenty of it soon, when Eliot gets completely sick of him and leaves.

He makes it to the audience chamber to hear at least a couple petitions so Fen doesn’t have to handle the whole day all on her own. Then, exhausted all over again, he trudges back to his room, back aching.

Some wonderful servant has drawn him a bath, ready to be heated with a quick spell. The water feels amazing on his complaining muscles. Who knew having your internal organs shoved out of the way to make room for a second person was such an uncomfortable process? He sighs out all the air in his lungs, feeling his lower back relax for the first time since — well, last time he took a bath like this. Maybe he can just hear cases in the bath. Would that be so weird? Fillory’s pretty weird anyway, maybe he can talk them into it.

The water doesn’t do anything, unfortunately, for the knot of anxiety in the middle of his spine, radiating hot pain up through his shoulders and neck. He can’t focus on it too much, or he’ll start crying again. It hurts.

He lets his head slip briefly under the water, coming up to run fingers through his wet hair and over his face. He needs to shave again. His beard has been growing faster than normal. His hair is glossy and thick, beautiful. He wishes Eliot still loved him enough to play with it, it’d probably feel really nice.

Twice the bath water cools down to room temperature, and twice he heats it back up again, trying not to think about anything. _Anything,_ just relax, focus on your breathing and this strange collection of limbs you call a body, which is betraying you at every turn in every way. No, that’s thinking. Stop that.

Finally he hauls himself out of the bath, towels off, wraps himself in a soft cotton robe and falls back into bed. His back starts hurting again as soon as he’s out of the water.

The most useful thing he does all week is mention how he’s feeling to Rue at his usual check-up. Eliot isn’t there, he had some strategy session to go to or something. Rue doesn’t comment on his absence.

“Mother’s Melancholy,” she says, holding the back of her hand to Quentin’s forehead. “We see it most often after the baby is born, but it’s not so uncommon during the pregnancy either. No fever, no other symptoms, just the sadness.”

“So what do we do?” Quentin asks, not expecting there will be an answer.

“Rest and luck are the only things that seem to clear it up. We lose women sometimes.” She looks hard at Quentin. “Are you feeling like you’d be better off out of this life, or others would be better off without you?”

“No,” Quentin says hollowly. He’s not. He knows perfectly well what’s that like. It could be around the corner, but it’s not here at the moment.

“Good,” Rue says, her voice softening a bit. “Lord Quentin, you have a partner who loves you. The whole royal family loves you, your people love you. Seek care from them, and that will ease your heart somewhat.”

Quentin swallows hard. Maybe a couple of those things are true, but he’s not sure how they help.

He makes it to two meetings the next day, one the day after that. That night it’s Fen’s night again, so he’s surprised when he hears his bedroom door open, as he’s lying there with the lights out staring at the wall. The mattress dips behind him with the weight of someone sitting on it, and he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

“I have a headache,” he says sarcastically, then realizes the hand is smaller than he was expecting?

He rolls over and there’s Fen, frowning down at him. “What’s wrong?” he asks immediately, sitting up. “Is Eliot okay?”

“Yes and no,” Fen says. “But it’s you I’m more concerned about.”

“I’m fine,” Quentin says. “Little bit of Mother’s Melancholy, not a big deal.” He lies back down and tucks his legs further in towards his belly.

“No,” Fen says firmly. “You’re not yourself.”

“I’m very myself,” Quentin grumbles. “I do this all the time.”

“Yes, but when it happens you ask for help,” Fen says. She puts her hand on Quentin’s shoulder again, squeezes a little. “You haven’t asked yet this time.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’m not sure you can. Eliot’s passed out drunk in my room right now, when he’d normally be in here every night when the sadness comes for you.”

Quentin swallows hard, fighting tears. The knot of anxiety in his spine is throbbing. “How is that my fucking responsibility?”

“It’s not, that’s not what I mean.” Fen readjusts herself on the bed, scooting closer to Quentin, and strokes his hair. It’s been too long since anyone did that, and Quentin leans helplessly into the touch. “I know it’s not— my place, to try and fix things between you two. But I want you to know that I see the pain you’re in. I don’t know why you’re in it, whether it’s the Melancholy or if Eliot actually did something unforgivable, this time—”

“He didn’t do anything,” Quentin says abruptly. “He’s fine. He’s Eliot. He didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just. Eliot.”

“So what is it, then?” Fen asks.

Quentin breathes heavily around the weight in his chest. She’ll probably just say he’s imagining things — she’ll be wrong, but she’ll say it. Will it be more painful to say it and not be believed, or to just keep it in?

Fen is stubborn. Fen is almost as stubborn as he is. She’s probably not going to leave until he says something, and it’s going to take so much energy to try and get her to.

“It’s me,” he says finally. “I’m the problem. He doesn’t want this baby anyway, and I’m making him crazy trying to take care of me and just. I knew he’d eventually get tired of me smothering him all the time. Like, in our lives in general. I didn’t think it’d be this soon, but the fucking moon had other plans.”

Fen draws in a long breath and sighs it out. “Well, now I know what I’m dealing with,” she says, and Quentin hates how light her tone is. This isn’t a fucking joke, this is his _life_ , he’s losing by far the best thing he’s ever had and on top of it he’s going to be a single dad in a few months.

“You don’t have to _deal with it_ ,” he says, jerking his head out from under her hand. “It’s not really your business.”

“No, but as the only other person who Eliot has had a baby with that he didn’t want, I do think I’m pretty qualified to weigh in.”

Quentin shudders. Everything hurts: her acknowledging that Eliot doesn’t want this, the reminder that she’s done all this already and he’s an asshole for forgetting it. His back hurts, his growing tits hurt. Everything. “So I’m right, then.”

“Again, yes and no. I think— Eliot definitely didn’t want our baby,” she says. Her voice is rough. “He was relieved when the fairies kept her. I don’t think that’s what’s happening now. I think he _does_ want your baby.”

“He clearly doesn’t.”

“Come on, Quentin, you’re smarter than this. What does Eliot do when he gets scared?”

Quentin rolls onto his back to look up at her, then grunts as the weight of his belly presses down into his spine. He struggles to a sitting position. “He pushes everyone away.”

“And crawls into the bottle, if it’s really bad,” Fen says, nodding. The moonlight catches on a smudge of wet across her cheek, like she wiped away a tear before it had a chance to fall all the way to her chin. 

“So it’s really bad, then,” Quentin sighs. He can’t even sit with his arms around his knees properly, there’s too much bump in the way.

“He’s really scared,” Fen corrects. “Which. I don’t think that’s the _wrong_ reaction for a new father, actually, but he’s dealing with it in the wrong way. And he’s making you far more miserable than you need to be right now by avoiding you.”

"He's obviously miserable being around me, so it makes sense he wouldn't want to be. I don't know, whose misery wins in this situation?" Not Quentin's, his feelings are always just a burden to everyone around him. He has to keep them to himself, not let them spill out onto people who have actually good lives. He should have pretended he was asleep when Fen came in. She doesn't deserve this.

"No misery. Why would we want anyone's misery to win? That has to be the Melancholy talking." Fen rests her hand on his shoulder, then tentatively slides it across his back, hugs him sideways into her. "I'll tell him he needs to actually talk to you. I think when he realizes what he's doing, he'll snap out of it. You do have to let him apologize, though, and not push him away," she adds.

Quentin rolls his eyes, wondering how he's ended up surrounded by so many damn people who _know_ him so well. Can't a guy just have his self-destructive personality quirks in peace anymore? "Yeah."

His heartburn makes it impossible for him to sleep for a while after she leaves, as it does most nights right now, but the pain feels more physical than the usual weird tangle of physical-emotional, so that could be a good sign.

Before Fen can make good on her promise, another thing happens that eases some of the sadness, unexpectedly. Quentin is in the bath ( _again,_ he's going to be permanently pruney if he doesn't figure out some other way to make his back stop fucking hurting), his eyes closed. He can hear his own breathing echoing in his water-filled ears, the gentle splash of water against the side of the tub when he moves one of his limbs, but that's about it. Every other sensation is gone, for a moment. It's glorious.

And then there's a sensation not from outside him but from inside — a flutter, kind of? Like the literal interpretation of butterflies-in-your-stomach? But from an area of his abdomen that he doesn't usually associate with feeling nervous, or even hungry. His eyes snap open and he holds himself very still, waiting to see if it'll happen again.

It does. Another tiny flutter, then a bigger one, a shift in position. It's... weird as hell, honestly. Things inside his body aren't supposed to be able to move without his say-so. But his brain gradually wraps itself around what's happening, and he feels the baby move again, and he gasps, shaking with emotion.

He sits up, splashing water everywhere, shakes his head to clear his ears. He presses his hands to his belly, smoothing water over his skin. The baby moves, oof, that one was especially vigorous. "Shh," he whispers down to his belly. "Shh, you're okay. It's okay." He gets up on shaking legs, nearly slips trying to get to his towel, and gets himself on the bed after an extremely cursory pass at drying himself off. He lies on his side, eyes closed, relishing every single strange twinge. The baby cha-chas around inside him for a good few minutes, then seems to settle again. Quentin keeps his eyes closed, replaying every motion in his mind. It can _move_ in there. Holy fuck.

He must have drifted off, because he wakes a little later to a knock on the door. "Mm," he says, before he remembers he's not actually wearing clothes and says "Wait—"

Eliot's already poked his head into the room, but he backs out instantly. "Sorry, sorry," he says through the door. "I'll come back later."

"No, _you_ can come in, it's fine," Quentin says. He's gotten his legs under the covers now, at least. "I just didn't know it was you."

“Do your pajamas not fit anymore?” Eliot asks. “We can get you some new ones.” He picks up Quentin’s discarded towel, hangs it up properly on the back of the bathroom door.

“No, I was in the bath, and then I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Quentin knows he’s not making a lot of sense, he’s still a little fuzzy from scrambling awake. Eliot doesn’t roll his eyes, though, or point out that Quentin’s babbling. He hovers by the bathroom door for a moment, then comes and sits on the bed, kitty-corner from where Quentin is.

“I need to— get my shit together,” Eliot says, not looking at Quentin. “Badly. I need to stop letting myself freak out and run. That’s not who I am, anymore. Or who I want to be, anyway.”

Quentin swallows hard, his eyes already prickling with tears. Thanks, hormones. “You should— be who you want to be,” he says. “If you want to run away, you— I mean, what you need is important, I want you to be happy—.”

“Stop it,” Eliot says. “Stop sacrificing yourself for two seconds. I’m not going to prioritize my needs over yours. I can’t do that and be a good partner, or a good—” he cuts himself off, glances at Quentin’s belly.

“I know you don’t want the baby,” Quentin blurts out. “But I do, Eliot, you don’t have to stick around long term but if you can just, help me get through to when it’s born. I’ll be okay.”

Eliot lets out a sound that kind of sounds like a laugh, but clearly isn’t. “I know you’d be okay,” he says. “But that’s really _not_ what I want, Q. I’m just trying to wrap my head around— I _do_ want this, I want you and to be partners and parents together. Again.” He lets out a shaky breath. “Sort of again. That’s part of the problem as well, that I remember when I did this before.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin says, his voice cracking.

Eliot looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “For what?”

“For doing this to you twice,” Quentin says. He can feel his face crumpling, and he pushes on, trying to get the words out around the tears. “You never asked for Teddy. You never asked for anything in that timeline. I just, I had a kid and then Arielle died and then you had to help raise him because you couldn’t leave, and now I did the same fucking thing to you all over again, you never asked for any of this—”

“That’s not at all what I meant, and if you think I didn’t want Teddy or didn’t love him once we had him, you could not be more fucking wrong,” Eliot says, his voice sharp. “God, Quentin. Are we remembering the same lifetime? I _loved_ him. I loved being his dad.” It’s his turn to swallow hard, now. “That’s where it keeps going sideways. I loved him, and I think I was all right as his dad, I did okay. We did okay together.”

“You did great,” Quentin says, confused. “We did great.”

“But that was _then_ , and _there_ , which is not _now_ or _here_. I’m a different person.” Eliot’s hands are in tight fists in his lap, and he stares at the ceiling. “I’m a more fucked up person. There’s no way I can do as well this time. What if that was the only time in all these alternate timelines that I actually get it right?”

“Eliot,” Quentin breathes. “That’s not— that’s not it. You were, we were different people but that’s _not_ why you were a good dad.”

“You have no way of knowing that,” Eliot says bitterly.

“You have no way of knowing you’re going to be worse this time around,” Quentin counters. 

Eliot pauses, then sighs. “You and your logic,” he says. “Fine. But that’s where my thoughts keep ending up. I'll get excited, like I should be, but then things go sideways in my head, and I fucking run away again." He sighs again. "I guess what I’m asking for is your patience, more than anything. If you can stick with me and not let my bullshit ruin this for you, that would be more than I deserve. I’m sorry I’ve been like this. I wish I could do better. I want this.”

It’s hard to believe, with the Melancholy still hanging like a cloud over Quentin’s head. But Eliot’s got that tight-lipped expression he gets when he’s forced himself to be honest and is waiting for it to come back and bite him, so probably he, at least, thinks he’s telling the truth.

“I don’t know how to make things not go sideways, in your head,” Quentin says. “It’s— everything’s really hard, Eliot, it’s, the pregnancy’s hard enough and then I’ve got like, prenatal depression, or maybe like just my normal depression, or both? So I’m also. Very fucked up. And I’m hard to love even on a good day.”

Eliot looks hard at Quentin, his expression pained. “You’re not hard to love. Hard to like, maybe, every once in a while.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out. “I just have to keep reminding myself that when I was a good parent before, so much of it was because we were parenting together. And, hopefully, you’ll still let me do that this time.”

“Of _course_ I will,” Quentin says frantically. Then he freezes, feeling those flutters and shifts again. He puts his hands on his belly, stares intently at it like he might be able to see through his skin if he tries hard enough.

“Q?” Eliot asks. “Is something wrong, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s fine, the baby’s just moving,” Quentin says. “Quiet, I’m trying to focus.”

Eliot shuts up and scrambles across the bed to Quentin’s side. “Is it,” he starts. “How do you know? Can I— feel?”

“I think it’s too soft still, but.” Quentin grabs one of Eliot’s hands, presses it to his belly where the flutters are strongest. He looks up into Eliot’s face: so focused, barely breathing. There’s fear there — or concern, maybe — but also excitement, exhilaration. 

Eliot shakes his head, meets Quentin’s eyes. “I can’t feel anything yet,” he says ruefully. “What’s it like?”

“Weird,” Quentin says. “It’s just, flailing around, I guess. It doesn’t feel like kicking really. More like squirming around a lot.”

“Wonder where it gets that from,” Eliot says, raising his eyebrows at Quentin. He leans forward briefly, like he’s going to go in for a kiss, then sits back a little, looking nervous. “I’m sorry. Again. Can you put up with me being pretty fucked up, while you’ve also got all this going on?”

“I can,” Quentin says, tears filling his eyes again. “I love you.”

“I love you, Q,” Eliot says, and he does lean in and kiss him, this time. Quentin melts into it, then jumps a little as the baby does a somersault, or something. Eliot pulls back, eyes questioning, Quentin shakes his head and points at his belly.

“I hope this gets less weird soon, or it’s going to be a rough twenty weeks from here on out,” Quentin says.

He meant just the sensation of the baby moving around, but Eliot laughs and says, “Does anything with us ever get _less_ weird as time goes on?”

“Not usually,” Quentin says, and smiles.


	9. 25 weeks

No matter how many enlargement charms they do on Quentin’s shirts, it’s now unavoidably obvious that he’s pregnant, so he has two choices: hide from the people of Fillory for five more months, or make an Official Announcement. 

He really doesn’t feel like dealing with any kind of Royal Baby brouhaha, so at first he does actually try hiding out in his room and having his meals brought to him— but by day three he’s absolutely stir-crazy, so that’s not going to work. And staying on Earth wouldn’t be any better, he’d still have to stay out of sight or answer some very awkward questions. At least here if he says “the moon got me pregnant” people will know what the fuck he’s talking about. Alice offers to let him stay in the Library and she’ll order her staff not to be weird about it, but Rue can’t leave her duties as palace healer to monitor him there. So, Official Announcement it is.

The people are surprised, then congratulatory, then after about a week the gifts start pouring in: 

Blankets and baby clothes and hand-carved rattles, woven baskets with tiny mattresses, a little wooden rocking unicorn. 

A truly terrifying contraption that Fen says is a very traditional birthing chair. (“What are all these straps for?” “...would you believe me if I said it was so you could keep your balance?”) 

Lotions and salves labeled for sore feet, sore boobs, stretch marks.

A collection of Earth board books from Julia. Quentin lines up them on the windowsill of his room so he can look at their cheerful, colorful spines whenever he needs a pick-me-up.

A set of knives? Like fighting knives? Why would a baby need knives? (“So they can start learning to use them. These ones can’t actually hurt anyway, here, see, if I stab my leg—” “Jesus, Fen, what the fuck!” “See, it’ll heal right up as soon as I pull it out. Barely even hurts!”)

A stack of gorgeous furs from the Lorians, and a carved bone ring for teething. Tiny knitted alpaca-wool booties from Lady Pike. Two elaborately embroidered christening gown type things from the Tribe of the Mountain that’s Floating Again Now, one with a design of little crowns, the other with little flowers, with instructions that the first one be used for a girl and the second for a boy. 

A maternity shirt with “All I Wanted Was A Backrub” printed across the stomach that Penny claims was Kady’s idea, and Kady claims was Penny’s idea, but anyway it’s comfy as hell, even if Quentin is too embarrassed to wear it outside his room.

Quentin still tries to hear petitions, but eventually Fen mostly takes that over and Quentin has his own separate audiences once a week because people just keep bringing presents and the people who actually have problems keep getting frustrated with the long lines. So every week, he spends one day with a smile plastered to his face, endlessly thanking people and trying to avoid answering invasive questions. He’s only had to have a guard step in and keep someone from physically rubbing his belly once, but once was fucking enough, so now he keeps one posted right by his side, ever vigilant.

“I feel like I should be enjoying this? All the gifts, and stuff?” he says to Margo at the end of the day, as the servants cart away his haul to the storeroom that’s had to be devoted entirely to baby stuff. “But it’s just like. How can we possibly use all of this? And sitting all afternoon isn’t like, the easiest thing right now, with my back. But if I say any of that I just sound ungrateful.”

“Definitely a my-diamond-shoes-are-too-tight vibe going on, yeah,” Margo says.

“All my shoes are too tight,” Quentin grumbles, and readjusts his shirt over his belly. He’s going to need to go back to the royal tailor soon and get another set of larger clothes. Why couldn’t he be doing this on a planet where elastic is a thing? Maybe he can bunny his measurements to Julia and she can pick him up a third trimester wardrobe.

“My subjects love you,” Margo says. “Deal with it. Although I agree, it’s annoying as fuck, you’re all they want to talk about. I’ve got nobles asking if this means we’re going to try and establish a dynasty, telling me I need to either adopt the baby or kill it or it’s going to challenge me for the throne—”

Quentin jolts to his feet, backs away a good yard from her.

“—which I would never fucking do, God, Q, really? I’m not a fucking monster.”

“You can’t adopt it, either,” Quentin says, one arm wrapped protectively around his bump, his other hand held out in front of him in a defensive position. “Have your own kids.”

“That’s a whole other fucking can of worms, but you seriously think I’d try and take your kid? I don’t know which of you would murder me faster, you or Eliot.”

“I don’t really think you would, I just, it was a knee jerk reaction,” Quentin says, letting his hand drop. But now he’s thinking about the fact that this baby is the offspring of two former kings, here, so its life is going to be unavoidably political. And this isn’t a rallies-and-photo ops kind of political, it’s what, strategic marriages? Kidnappings? Assassination attempts? He rubs his belly, thoughts whirling. “Can you keep me posted on who’s saying that?” he asks, his voice strangely high pitched. “And maybe like. Banish them?”

“Okay, that’s a no on the keeping you posted,” Margo says, side-eyeing him. “You’re fucking stressed enough already. I’m shutting that shit down every time it comes up, I’ve got your back. You can keep it on Earth if you want, anyway, can’t you?”

Quentin’s been thinking about that lately, the pros and cons of raising a kid across two worlds. In the pro-Earth column: vaccines, formula, preschool. Disposable diapers. In the pro-Fillory column: they’ve built a life here, a rhythm that works for both of them and for Fen and Margo. They have projects they’re in the middle of. There are servants at their beck and call. “I don’t know, Eliot and I need to talk about it,” he says. “I don’t know. We still have a few months to figure it out.” He moves a hand to the side of his belly as the baby jabs his ribs. “Oof. Someone’s awake.”

Margo looks at him with the terrified expression she always gets when she thinks too hard about the physical aspects of pregnancy. “Uh-huh. Anyway, you just keep sitting here and accepting all the nice gifts from everyone and their cousin, I’ll handle the bullshit behind the scenes. Like I do all the time for this fucking country.”

“You’re welcome to take some of my presents as taxes,” Quentin says. “I think I’ve gotten like. Seven sets of these supposed-to-be-harmless knives? I really don’t need them.”

Margo picks one up, tests it with a fingertip. “Do they still hurt?”

“I think a little. They definitely don’t do lasting damage, though, Fen fucking stabbed herself in the leg and walked out of here just fine a minute later.”

Margo’s eyes gleam in a way Quentin finds both terrifying and, alarmingly, kind of hot. “I’ll take some of those off your hands, then,” she purrs. “Let me know about anything else interesting you get. We’ll figure out some way to distribute what you don’t want to like, poor moms who need it, or something. And keep up the good work, mama.” She steps up to him and pats his cheek. “You got this.”


	10. 31 weeks

Quentin and Eliot really do need to talk — about where to raise the baby, about names, about Eliot visiting Earth to learn infant CPR and find a pediatrician who’s also a magician — but they aren’t, shall we say, spending a ton of time on conversation right now.

“I just. Really did not realize you’d be this into this,” Quentin manages, clutching the bedspread, as Eliot kisses the swell of his belly, kneeling naked on the floor in front of him with fascinated eyes and a raging erection.

“You and me both,” Eliot says. “I have no fucking clue why, but you’re _so_ hot like this.” His hands slip down under Quentin’s belly, finding his cock, already half-hard. Quentin gasps. He can’t actually see his own dick anymore, so Eliot doesn’t even need to blindfold him now to surprise him like this. They’ve been having fun with that.

“Possibly some of it is like, I did that. _I_ did that, and fucking _look_ at you,” Eliot continues as he strokes Quentin to full hardness.

“Oh, so it’s your ego, as always,” Quentin says, grinning. “Makes sense.”

Eliot lets go of his dick. “We don’t have to have sex, you know,” he threatens unconvincingly. “I can just let you try and get yourself off.”

“Mm, no, please,” Quentin says, squirming. Eliot _knows_ he’s too big to reach easily. “God damnit, El.”

“Ask nicely,” Eliot says. Quentin can feel his hands on Quentin’s thighs again, gripping firmly but not moving.

“Fuck you,” Quentin says. “Touch my dick, we both know you want to.” He arches his back, thrusts his hips forward.

“It’s really a problem that I can’t say no to you like this,” Eliot says, planting another kiss on Quentin’s belly and reaching in to get a hand around Quentin’s cock again. Quentin moans loudly. “You’re already such a brat, this is only going to make it worse.” He strokes fast, short motions down that leave Quentin gasping. “Fuck, yes, you like that? This is, it’s so fucking wild to see you with your cock hard and your big pregnant belly, your tits. Play with those for me?”

Quentin moans again. His nipples are still so sensitive, and he barely brushes a thumb over one, cups his breast in his hand. It’s weird but he feels too good to fucking care.

“God,” Eliot says, looking up at him through his lashes. “Your cock fucking _jumps_ when you do that. You like this so much, don’t you?”

“El,” Quentin says brokenly. He doesn’t want to come yet, but Eliot’s being brutally efficient, hitting all the spots that take Quentin apart.

Eliot’s hand slows on Quentin’s cock, switching to long, gentle strokes. The noise Quentin makes is part disappointment, part relief. “How do you want me?” Eliot asks softly. “You want my mouth, you want me in you?”

“In, in me— God, Eliot, fuck—” 

“We’ll have to change positions,” Eliot says. “I can’t even fuck you face to face anymore you’re so big, I’ll have to flip you over, get in you from behind—”

“ _Yes_ , do that.”

“Do you need it right now, or can you hold on long enough to suck my cock first?”

Quentin’s whole body jerks. “I can suck it, I want to.”

Eliot grins at him wickedly. “Good boy.” He stands, helps Quentin stand, and they swap positions, Eliot sitting on the edge of the bed, Quentin kneeling between his legs. Eliot sweeps Quentin’s hair away from his face, and Quentin turns his head quick enough to catch Eliot’s thumb in his mouth, suck it and run his tongue over it. “Fuck,” Eliot breathes. “Jesus, Q, fuck.”

Quentin sucks once more on Eliot’s thumb, then lets it go and leans in, not having to go far at all to get up close and personal with Eliot’s big, gorgeous dick. He lets it rub against his lips, slips his tongue out to lick it once, briefly, bends in to kiss the inside of Eliot’s thigh so it slides along his cheek.

“You fucking tease,” Eliot says, threading fingers through Quentin’s hair and holding tight, but not directing his head anywhere quite yet. “I love how much you love this. Ready?” Quentin nods frantically, enjoying how Eliot’s grip tugs on his hair when he does. “Come on, then, open up.”

Quentin closes his eyes involuntarily as Eliot feeds his dick into his mouth, breathing out deeply through his nose to loosen his jaw and let it get in there as far as it can, stretching his lips. He shudders at the breathless noise Eliot makes. Eliot’s fingers loosen in his hair, and Quentin bobs back and then forward, getting his lips wet, getting his tongue moving.

“Fuck— _fuck_ ,” Eliot says. “God, my beautiful fucking boy, you make me feel so fucking good—”

Quentin hums happily and keeps sucking, so satisfied with his mouth full of Eliot’s cock. It’s wild how this feels like it _completes_ him, not physically but emotionally, like what he’s been missing all these years is just a fucking dick in his mouth. He can be so good, like this. He knows how to do everything right, it just comes to him naturally: relax his face, slide his tongue, keep up a rhythm and pressure and just listen as Eliot tells him how good he is, taking it, how beautiful Quentin looks with Eliot’s fat cock in his mouth. It’s like breathing. Even easier than breathing, these days, when breathing is tricky with the baby shoving its way into his lungs’ usual space.

Eliot pets Quentin’s hair, strokes his thumb across Quentin’s forehead, touches the stretched skin at the corner of his mouth. He reaches down carefully past Quentin’s chin to cup his breast, rubs circles over his nipple, and Quentin moans as best he can with his mouth full of cock. Eliot switches to the other breast. “I love how much you love this,” he says again. “You just completely bliss out. And I can do whatever I want with you, pull your hair, hold your arms still, and you just never stop _sucking_ — fuck, _Q_ —” His fingers tighten back down in Quentin’s hair and pull Quentin’s mouth off his dick. Quentin goes along with it reluctantly, makes sure to let his tongue trail out of his mouth so he can get one last lick at the head before Eliot is leaning down, tipping his head back to kiss him hard.

“Should I fuck you now?” Eliot asks.

“Fuck, yes,” Quentin says, struggling to his feet.

There are some logistics to work out, pillows to stack to prop up Quentin’s chest so he won’t lean too hard on his belly, but finally he’s comfortable and Eliot is fucking two long fingers into him, curling them to make him shout. In this position he can fuck himself back onto whatever Eliot gives him, he’s got plenty of leverage and force and he uses it to full advantage. This isn’t a position they use often — normally they like to see each other’s faces — but there’s definitely something to be said for face down ass up when you just want to get good and _fucked_.

When Eliot slides inside him Quentin grinds back on his dick, pleasure shocking the air out of his lungs. He finds his voice again as Eliot starts fucking him, slow and deep and unrelenting, constant delicious motion. “Oh, El,” he moans into the pillows, muffled. “Fuck, yes, god—”

Eliot’s got a death grip on Quentin’s hip with one hand. His other smooths up along Quentin’s spine, digs into the muscles of his back a little as it drags back to his ass. “You’re so gorgeous taking my cock, you take it so well,” he says, “Yes, good, arch your back like that, take me in deep—”

Quentin lets the constant stream of dirty talk fade into amazing background noise, focuses on the stretch of Eliot inside him, the heat of Eliot’s thighs pressed against the backs of his own thighs, and eventually the just-perceptible but oh-so-good hardening that means Eliot’s on the edge, Quentin will get to feel him come in a moment. Eliot reaches down under Quentin’s body and fists Quentin’s dick, back to those fast efficient strokes and Quentin feels himself unraveling, pleasure all up and down his spine and straight through him as he comes with a scream just seconds before Eliot slides into him one final time and falls over the edge himself. 

Quentin’s arms have given out, thank god he’s got these pillows stacked under him. Eliot helps pull him up to kneeling, wraps an arm around him just above his belly and kisses the side of his neck, breathes out slowly against Quentin’s skin.

“Good for you?” he asks.

“Very,” Quentin sighs. “You?”

“Incredible,” Eliot says. He carefully gets Quentin off his cock and cleaned up, lays him down on his side, curves his body around him. Quentin’s halfway to dozing already, sated and pliant.

The baby has other ideas, rolling over and delivering an impressive karate chop to Quentin’s bladder. Quentin groans and shoves himself up.

When he returns from the bathroom, Eliot’s ready to welcome him right back into the same position, cupping Quentin’s belly in one large hand. The baby kicks, this time right where Eliot’s hand is.

“Hello,” Eliot croons. He pets Quentin’s belly. “Sorry, did we disturb you in there? My apologies. Your daddy just loves getting fucked, and I can’t deny him anything.”

Quentin rolls his eyes sleepily. “I think you’re going to be the pushover parent,” he says. 

“One thousand percent,” Eliot says. “You’re bad cop. I’m ‘as soon as daddy’s out of earshot you’re off the hook’ cop.” The baby kicks his hand again. “Isn’t that right, my little can-can dancer?”

“I’m thinking less can-can dancer, more Jessica Jones,” Quentin says. He peers back over his shoulder and see’s Eliot’s blank look. “Superhero with super strength, punches very hard.”

“It can be both,” Eliot says. “Professional dancers are strong as hell.”

“And need reasonable senses of rhythm and balance, which it’s not inheriting from me.”

“No,” Eliot says fondly. “Hopefully it’ll get your eyes, your moral compass, your dimples. My height, my good taste. Intelligence, doesn’t matter whose, we’re both brilliant.”

“Your humility,” Quentin says wryly. “My confidence. You know, the things we’re both best at.”

“At least we won’t fuck it up the same way our respective parents fucked us up,” Eliot says. “We’ll fuck it up in some whole new, different way.”

“Another thing we’re both good at,” Quentin says. He wrangles himself laboriously onto his other side so he can look at Eliot, cup his face in one hand. “I’m glad you’re— doing better. About wanting it. Like, it’s not freaking you out as much.”

“I still have my moments,” Eliot says. “But in general, yes. I’m freaking out on a much less regular basis.” He turns into Quentin’s touch, kisses the palm of his hand. “ _I’m_ glad there are antidepressants you can safely take while pregnant. I missed you.”

“I’m glad there are too,” Quentin sighs. “If I had to just stick with Rue’s prescription of ‘relax and hope it goes away’, I don’t know—” he shakes his head. “I didn’t ever really— think I’d live to have kids, honestly. I always thought I’d. I mean, probably either kill myself or, once I knew magic was a thing, die violently in some terrible magical whatever. When we had Teddy—” his eyes are full of tears, abruptly. “That was my shot, I figured, I was lucky to have even that.”

Eliot’s jaw works under Quentin’s hand, clenching. “We _were_ lucky to have that,” he says eventually, and pulls Quentin closer, holding him tight. “And we’re lucky to have this, now.”

“Incredibly,” Quentin agrees. He tucks his head under Eliot’s chin. The baby has settled again, and he’s back to feeling like his limbs are all heavy, and Eliot’s body is a solid wall of warmth and comfort in front of him. “I’ve been thinking,” he says sleepily, “Maybe— we could name the baby Arielle, if it’s a girl? It fits in here and on Earth, and it seems. I think it’s like, it honors that family, the first one we had.”

“I love that,” Eliot says, kissing Quentin’s hair. “We could go Ari for a boy, if we wanted.”

“We have nine weeks to decide,” Quentin says through a yawn. 

“Do they have birth certificates in Fillory?” Eliot muses. “Or do you just tell a passing bird the baby’s arrived and they spread the word through all the land, or something?”

“‘M sleeping, Eliot,” Quentin says. “Shhh.”

He feels another kiss on the top of his head. “Love you, Q,” Eliot murmurs, and then Quentin falls asleep.


	11. 37 weeks

Things Quentin is thoroughly, _thoroughly_ over:

People telling him he looks ready to pop, or saying “any day now!” in a sing-song tone.

Having to change his shirt all the time because his boobs keep leaking.

Lumbering. Waddling. Whatever you want to call the kind of motion he’s forced to do to get around, now.

Swollen ankles, swollen fingers, swollen everything. New stretch marks on his hips, his stomach, his chest, every damn time he looks in the mirror.

Not a single pair of comfortable pants fitting.

The fucking baby doing a fucking tapdance on his bladder at two in the fucking morning.

Painful but useless contractions (Lipson calls them Braxton-Hicks, Rue calls them False Heralds), at the weirdest moments, usually when he’s trying to concentrate on something or take a nap.

“It knows it’s not actually going to have to contract, right?” he grouses, as he’s waiting for Rue to mix up yet another potion that might help with his nausea. “We’re just going to cut it out. Like, it can stop fucking practicing. There’s nowhere for the baby to even go.”

“Your body is just following the natural course of things,” Rue says calmly. “It’s never comfortable, this far into it.” She hands Quentin the potion to drink and picks up her blue glass lens, holding it off to the side of his belly.

“Don’t women sometimes give birth at this point?” Quentin asks. “Couldn’t I just. Be done? It’s basically done in there, right?”

“Babies born early are weaker and smaller,” Rue says. She motions for Quentin to drink the potion. “They have less chance of surviving their first year. You won’t have another chance at having a child of your body like this, Lord Quentin. Be patient.”

Quentin gags on the bitter taste of the potion, shakes a chip of ice into his mouth from his goblet full of them. Thank fuck for the Insta-Freeze spell Josh developed. Ice cubes are all Quentin really wants, this week, and there’s no such thing as a freezer here. “I know,” he sighs.

“I’ll come to your rooms to see how you are each morning. As soon as there are signs of labor, we should begin the spell. Or you can continue to visit me here in the healers’ quarters, if you’d prefer — the walk up and down the stairs could be helpful in bringing labor on.”

Quentin weighs his options: sore muscles from climbing the stairs vs staying pregnant one moment longer than he has to. “I’ll come up to you,” he says. “Are there any other things that, uh. Could get things going?”

Rue smiles a little to herself as she makes notes on the scroll that has gotten longer and longer every checkup. The rolled-up part of it now has its own little basket to keep it tidy. “You might also try long walks — walking around the gardens could only do you good, really, as long as you stay hydrated. And then of course there’s lovemaking.” She looks at him. If she wore glasses, she’d be peering at him over the frames. “I have my doubts about whether that truly works, but couples keep trying it, and I haven’t heard any complaints that they thought it wasted time.”

Quentin’s beyond blushing in front of Rue at this point. She’s seen every inch of his body up close, poked and prodded and used her various lenses to get extremely good views of his insides. He’s done essentially every bodily function either in front of her or on her request. She made him give her a detailed description of what _exactly_ he and Eliot had done on the night of this unusual conception, drawing diagrams of positions in her notes, asking in a calm voice how long Eliot’s dick is and how much of it Quentin thought had been inside his body at the moment of ejaculation. So this is nothing, really. Quentin just nods at her and eats another ice chip.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, or sooner if labor begins. You know the signs to look for.”

“Greater pain, pain in my back, pains that come more and more often and stay longer,” Quentin recites dutifully.

Rue smiles at him. “You are the oddest case of motherhood I’ve seen, Lord Quentin, but you are dedicated and responsible and bright. I know you’ll do wonderfully.”

Quentin leaves, waddling down the hallway, eating more ice chips. Hopefully Eliot’s done with his frantic third redecoration of the corner of Quentin’s room that will serve as a nursery. Because even if he’s not done, he’s about to get interrupted. No way is Quentin walking around the damn gardens to get labor to start, given the other option.


	12. 40 weeks + 2 days

The moons are high in the sky, one a crescent and one nearly full, when Quentin wakes up in the middle of the night, not sure what woke him. He doesn’t think there was a noise. He doesn’t need to pee that badly. He feels a little nauseous, but not imminently. The False Herald contractions aren’t any different than they were when he went to bed, and he managed to get himself to sleep despite having them every once in a while, so why would one have woken him up? Oh, and here comes another one.

Except this one hurts a _lot_.

Quentin can’t speak right away, breathing through the pain the way Fen taught him, but the moment it starts to fade he says, “El. Eliot. _El_ ,” until Eliot rolls over and opens one eye. “I think—”

“It’s time?” Eliot finishes for him, sitting bolt upright. “Are you sure?”

“No I’m not sure, I just fucking woke up, but that contraction felt like it meant business.”

“Worth going to Rue anyway, then,” Eliot says. Quentin can’t tell if he’s ghost-white just because of the moonlight hitting his face or if he’s really freaking out. “Come on, let’s get some clothes on you and go upstairs.”

Quentin would just as soon stay in his pajamas (okay, his nightgown — look, it’s comfortable, okay?) but he ties his pants under his belly, pulls on a shirt made with what feels like about a yard more fabric than he used to need. He’s stepping into his softest slippers when another pain hits, and he clutches the corner of the wardrobe.

“Q?” Eliot’s by his side. His shirt buttons are misaligned by one. Quentin breathes through the pain until it’s easier to talk, then points this out to him.

“I truly could not care less right now,” Eliot says, taking Quentin by the elbow. “We need to get you upstairs.”

An absurd amount of time and two contractions later, they’re finally one floor up at the healer’s quarters. The servant Eliot sent running ahead to wake Rue did her job — Rue greets them in her healer’s gown and a calm smile, and there are a series of spell ingredients in small bowls next to one of the beds.

“Yes, you’re certainly in labor,” Rue says, looking through her blue glass lens as Quentin grits his teeth and squeezes Eliot’s hand to death through another pain. “And it’s coming along quickly, too, that’s interesting. Very quickly.” She puts down the lens. “Come now, shirt off and lie down. You’ll be meeting your baby well before the sun rises.”

Quentin’s heart thrills, at that. “Fuck,” he says to himself, as Eliot starts undoing the ties on his shirt for him with frantic fingers. “This is real.”

“You’re only realizing that now?” Eliot asks, and Quentin thinks he’s trying to joke but there’s a real note of hysteria in his voice.

Rue is busily mixing ingredients and chanting. When Quentin is settled on his back, she waits for a contraction to pass and then paints a careful line across his belly with some deep blue paste, pushing her fingers against his bump to find the right place to draw it. It’s followed by intricate symbols in black ink, red fruit juice, green slime. Every time a pain hits, she has to stop until it passes so Quentin can tense up and swear and breathe, when Eliot reminds him to. 

And the time in between pains is getting shorter and shorter. Eliot is the one crushing Quentin’s hand, now, as he counts the seconds between and during pains and looks more and more alarmed. “He’s only about three minutes between contractions,” he tells Rue. “That’s active labor, that’s the _end_ of active labor.”

“I’m going as quickly as is advisable, Lord Eliot,” Rue says, and for the first time in forty weeks she actually sounds tense. The hair on the back of Quentin’s neck prickles. “Everything up to this point has matched any other first time mother’s experience, and I was anticipating labor to do the same and extend for a number of hours. We still have plenty of time to complete the spell, if you will _avoid distracting me_.”

Another contraction hits, and Quentin tries to breathe like he’s supposed to but it _hurts_ , fuck. Eliot strokes his forehead with the back of his hand, whispers in his ear how he’s doing great, Quentin, you’ve got this, just hold on. 

Rue starts painting a series of small runes around the base of Quentin’s bump, but she barely has time to complete the first few before Quentin is saying "Fuck, ow, God, augh" and breathing hard again as another wave of pain envelops him. She grabs her blue lens and looks through it with a frown.

“We still have time,” she says while Quentin’s still in the middle of it, “But I will need to keep working through the pains now, just to be sure. And Lord Quentin?”

Quentin shudders as the contraction finishes. It feels like another one may be on the way any moment. He nods to Rue to show he’s paying attention.

“If you feel like you need to push,” she says. “ _Don’t_.” 

Quentin’s hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat. Another pain hits, and goes on and on. 

“Ninety-three seconds between those two,” Eliot tells Rue. He’s sweating too, and he’s definitely pale from fear, now, not from moonlight. “Q, love,” he says, cupping Quentin’s cheek, “Hold on, all right? You’re almost there, you’re doing so good.”

“Shut up and fucking hold my hand,” Quentin grits out as the next pain comes on.

Rue finishes her last circle of runes and steps back, bringing her hands carefully up in front of her in a spellcasting position. A pain hits that radiates all the way through Quentin’s back, and he makes a desperate noise.

“It feels,” he says, gasping. “I want to, I—”

“Don’t push,” Rue snaps. “Lord Eliot, if you dislike the sight of blood, now would be the time to look away.”

Quentin squeezes his eyes shut and focuses all his energy on holding Eliot’s hand and not doing whatever it is his body so desperately wants him to do. There’s a strange pressure that turns into pain, searing pain, worse than a contraction and splitting across his belly along the first line Rue painted. He screams. The pain goes on, then a feeling like icy cold, like jumping into a frozen lake, washes over him, starting with his belly and moving outwards, all through his abdomen. He wants to look at what’s happening, but he’s terrified of what he’ll see. Are his organs rupturing, is this it? Did he accidentally push the baby out with nowhere for it to go, was Rue too late, did it survive?

The icy cold recedes into an ache, like his muscles are overused and sprained, and Quentin hears an ear-piercing cry.

He opens his eyes, and Rue is holding a squirming red thing, attached by a winding blue cord to a strange lump of meat sitting in a clay basin. Rue hands the baby to Eliot without any instruction or ceremony and returns her hands to a spellcasting position. Quentin looks down— then looks up at the ceiling abruptly. It’s not even the blood, it’s just, nobody’s supposed to see their own intestines. Nope.

“Q,” Eliot says. His voice is shaking. “It’s a girl.”

“There,” Rue sighs, sounding satisfied. “That was a rousing success. How do you feel, Lord Quentin?”

Quentin has no idea how to answer that question. Everything hurts. He’s sweaty and panting and crying and covered in strange sticky substances and Eliot is holding _their daughter_ , they have a child they made together. “Is she okay?” he asks immediately. “She’s okay, right?”

Their baby has continued to wail, thoroughly displeased by suddenly being in air and light and noise. Quentin can see her if he turns his head, he doesn’t think trying to sit up is a great idea. She’s got a head of wet dark hair, there’s a little bit of blood smeared across her back. Rue steps over with a knife and a piece of string, cuts the cord neatly and ties it off.

“She has healthy lungs, certainly,” she says. “A strong baby, this one, lively. She’ll do well.”

“She’s perfect, Q,” Eliot says. His face is streaming with tears. He scoots his chair closer to the bed, oh so carefully lays her down on Quentin’s bare chest. 

Quentin stares at her, brings his hands up to gingerly touch her head, stroke her tiny arm. “Holy fuck,” he breathes. The baby’s wails are turning into little irritated snuffles now that her face is against his skin. “Holy fuck. Hi, hello. Good to finally meet you.”

Eliot laugh-sobs, rests his forehead on Quentin’s shoulder. “Oh my god, Quentin,” he says. “I can’t. That was insane, I’m shaking. And I’m not the one who just fucking gave birth.”

Quentin doesn’t really feel that shaky, strangely. Everything hurts, in new and different ways compared to how everything’s been hurting for months. But this little bundle of flailing limbs on his chest is so much more important than the pain. She opens her eyes, squints at him angrily. “Eliot,” he says, his voice breaking. “Oh my god.”

“Right?” Eliot sits up and puts a hand on her back — it’s huge, his hands are always huge but she’s so _tiny_ under his palm.

“She does look a little like an alien,” Quentin observes.

“Don’t you dare say that,” Eliot says. “She is the prettiest girl in all the land. And I’m not being sexist, if she were a boy she’d be the prettiest boy in all the land.”

“I mean, that’s true too.” Quentin strokes her cheek. Her nose, who knew noses came in such small sizes?

Rue comes back to the bedside with cloths and a washbasin. “You should hold her as much as you can, this first day,” she says. “But we ought to get you both cleaned up first.”

Quentin lets her take the baby and hand Eliot a washcloth with instructions to clean the remnants of spell ingredients and blood off of Quentin’s body. Eliot keeps getting distracted watching Rue clean off the baby (more screaming, she’s not a big fan of baths, apparently), so Quentin puts his hand over Eliot’s and they work together to get his stretched, swollen belly clean. It looks — strangely deflated, and there’s a line of new pink shiny skin right where Rue cut him open, criss-crossing his dozens of stretch marks.

“In most mothers, it would take a number of days for the womb to return to its resting size, and the belly would recede in size gradually as it does,” Rue says, expertly winding a cloth around the baby’s bottom half and tying it into a diaper. “With you, since we removed your womb entirely, the muscles of your body will have a stranger adjustment. You’ll want to be careful about how quickly you move or twist. The techniques Mistress Lipson taught me are excellent, but they can’t fully replace the natural healing process.”

“Can I sit up, though?” Quentin asks.

“Of course, with Lord Eliot’s help,” Rue says, and Eliot tears his eyes away from the baby, now more pink than red and still kicking around at random, to get his hands under Quentin’s shoulders and help him to a sitting position. It hurts a _lot,_ but once Quentin’s propped against plenty of pillows, there's no other position he'd rather be in, as Rue sets his daughter down gently in his arms.

“She’ll want to eat soon, most likely, and it appears your body will provide,” Rue says. “If she has difficulty sucking, tell me, and I’ll help. I’ll leave you three to your time, now.”

“Thank you,” Quentin tells her, as heartfelt as he can. “Fucking thank you so much.” She smiles at him and heads further back into the healers’ quarters.

“No child of ours is going to have any difficulty sucking,” Eliot mutters, and Quentin glares at him.

“Could you wait until she’s like an hour old before you start sexualizing our daughter, please?”

“Probably not,” Eliot says. “I’m incorrigible.” He touches one of her legs, grabs a tiny foot and holds on as she wiggles. “That’s okay, darling, you can’t understand me yet anyway. I have at least a year before I really have to censor myself.”

They just look at her in silence for a while. Quentin’s spent weeks feeling overstuffed, too full of someone else’s body to even handle it. Now that’s gone, but he still feels full to overflowing, now of happiness and aching love. “Eliot, um,” he says eventually. “Are you still okay with Arielle? For a name?”

“Absolutely,” Eliot says. “She’s unexpected and wonderful and we barely deserve her. It suits her perfectly.”

Quentin’s face splits into a huge grin, so wide it almost hurts. He leans down and kisses the baby’s forehead. Her skin is so warm, her little shock of dark hair is soft, do all babies just naturally smell good like this? Teddy did, too. “Hi, Arielle,” he says. “Arielle Coldwater-Waugh.”

“Does she need a middle name?” Eliot asks.

Quentin thinks, looks up at Eliot. “We could— no, maybe not.” Eliot raises an eyebrow at Quentin quizzically. “We could ask Fen, what was she planning on naming your baby? Unless that would be— really weird. Obviously this baby won’t be the same person, we’re not trying to— replace anything, but. A way to remember her, the other baby.”

Eliot looks at baby Arielle for a long moment, then looks at Quentin, and nods. “We should ask her,” he says, voice rough. “I’d like that.”

Arielle flails out, whacking Quentin in the chest, and then tenses her little body and opens her mouth in an impressively loud cry.

“Damn, she’s a screamer, just like her daddy,” Eliot says.

“Eliot, what did I _just_ say?”

“I think she’s hungry,” Eliot deflects. “Time to see if those titties are good for something other than being very confusingly hot.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and tries to shift Arielle over to one side, roll her into the right position while still keeping her head supported. She knows exactly what to do: when his breast brushes her cheek, she moves her mouth instinctively towards it, and as soon as Quentin gets his nipple in place she’s sucking happily.

“What does that feel like?” Eliot asks, watching her little cheeks move as she eats.

“Weird,” Quentin says. “But not, like, the weirdest thing I’ve felt in the last hour. It’s good.” He shifts a little, juggling the baby higher up into the crook of his elbow. “Maybe now my chest will stop fucking hurting all the time.”

“I don’t plan on sucking on your nipples any time soon, when we’re having sex,” Eliot says. “I’m a man of wide-ranging tastes, but lactation has never been a kink of mine.”

“You think we’re having sex any time soon?” Quentin asks. “My whole stomach just got sliced open and we have a newborn now. I’m not feeling particularly horny.”

“I can wait.” Eliot kisses him. “I’ll wait as long as I have to, for you.”

Arielle reaches out as she nurses, grabbing blindly. Eliot touches her hand, and she grabs his finger, holds on tight.

“Hi, baby,” Eliot says. “Welcome home.”


End file.
